Does a viral graph accurately represent the outcome of the 2025 Romanian presidential election? No, that's not true: The graph showed the odds of Nicușor Dan's victory, not the actual share of the votes he earned. The image originated from a betting website, not from the national election officials.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X where it was published on May 19, 2025. It opened:
Romania's election ... hm.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The entry reviewed in this article implied that the figure of 98% next to Nicușor Dan's name represented the percentage of votes cast for that candidate, but that wasn't accurate.
Romania voted in its presidential election May 18, 2025. Dan, who is known as a moderate, pro-European Union politician (archived here), won popular support over a far-right opponent. Yet, the share of the people who voted for Dan (archived here) was not 98% but 53.6% (archived here).
The figure of 98% represents the odds of his victory, not the actual proportion of the ballots, and that becomes evident from the logo of Polymarket (archived here) seen in the graph in question. That company describes itself as a "prediction market" that reflects "real-time probabilities" of various events.
The updated version of the same graph appeared on the Polymarket's website (archived here), too.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks concerning Europe can be found here.
