EXCLUSIVE. Bucharest elections. The latest AtlasIntel poll shows an unexpected reversal of positions in the competition that remains “to the millimeter” between the candidates / Everything is possible Sunday, December 7, at the polls

On Friday, HotNews received the third and final survey AtlasIntel has conducted in this campaign. Conducted between December 1-5, the poll shows Anca Alexandrescu in first place, with 0.1% in front of Daniel Băluță, which practically means equality. And Ciprian Ciucu follows them at less than 4%, keeping the race extremely close.

• Here are the dates for the first AtlasIntel survey – November 17.
• Here are the data from the second AtlasIntel survey – December 1st.
• Here are the data of several surveys, practically all the significant ones, regardless of who conducted them – various surveys compared.
• The AtlasIntel polls were close to the result in the local elections of 2024. In the presidential elections of November 2024, however, the same polling house placed Călin Georgescu only 5th, far from the result of the vote.

On Sunday, December 7, the people of Bucharest will decide not only the future mayor of the city, but, as has often happened, they will give a signal for the political situation in the whole country.

Alexandrescu and Băluță changed positions, but the distance of 0.1% is tiny

The third AtlasIntel poll indicates, for the first time, Anca Alexandrescu in first place. With 24%, the candidate supported by AUR is only 0.1% ahead of Daniel Băluță, who has 23.9%.

Basically, the positions of the two have reversed compared to the second AtlasIntel survey, from December 1, when Băluță was leading by 0.1%, the same tiny distance.

Ciucu 20.2%, Drula 15.3%

In third place comes Ciprian Ciucu, the PNL representative, with 20.2%, less than 4% of the two. That means, according to the poll's margin of error, the gap between the top three is “too close to declare a favorite,” to use a phrase from the US election. Ciucu is slightly decreasing, from 21.7% to 20.2%.

USR candidate Cătălin Drula is in 4th place, with 15.3%. Drula remained constant, with the previous survey showing it at 15.5%.

In the first poll, on November 17, all the top four were placed within 1.5%, being very close. The order was: Ciucu 19.2%, Baluta 18.6%, Drula 18.1%, Anca Alexandrescu 17.9%.

Cicălea has reached 10%

On the 5th comes Anca Ciceală, the representative of the left-wing progressive party SENS, which increased to 10%, from 8.4% in the previous poll. It is a completely unexpected score for the SENS candidate, who spent by far the least money in the campaign, among the first 5 ranked.

Survey elements

• The opinion poll was conducted by AtlasIntel for HotNews between December 1-5, 2025, on a sample of 2,188 people.
• The AtlasIntel poll was conducted using digital random sampling and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points at 95% confidence level.
• The AtlasIntel polls were close to the result in the local elections of 2024. In the presidential elections of November 2024, however, the same polling house placed Călin Georgescu only 5th, far from the result of the vote, but gave Elena Lasconi as the finalist, which happened.

The other candidates don't matter and don't seem like they can influence

1.9% vote null/white or do not vote, while 1.6% of respondents say they are voting for another candidate and 1.5% do not know.

Independent candidate Eugen Teodorovici – 0.7%, George Burcea from POT – 0.4%, Gheorghe Nețoiu – 0.3% and Vlad Gheorghe (Right) – 0.2% have less than one percent. Vlad Gheorghe announced his retirement, meanwhile, to support Ciprian Ciucu from the PNL.

Changes since the first survey

The survey was conducted between November 27-30

The survey was conducted between November 12-14

The first AtlasIntel survey was conducted for HotNews between November 12-14, it was published on November 17 and showed the following ranking: Ciprian Ciucu, Daniel Băluță, Cătălin Drula and in 4th place Anca Alexandrescu.

Ciucu was then credited with 19.2% and was followed by the PSD candidate, the mayor of sector 4, Daniel Băluță, with 18.6%. It was the lowest percentage that Băluță had until then in a survey. The other polling houses (Curs and Avangarde) credited him with scores between 24 and 27%.

In third place in the first AtlasIntel survey, published on November 17, was Cătălin Drula from USR, with 18.1%, followed by Anca Alexandrescu with 17.9%.

The surprise of the first AtlasIntel survey was Ana Ciceală, with 7.1%, being the first time that a survey credited her with such a score. Having left USR, she is the SENS candidate, belonging to the progressive left current.

How close to the result were opinion polls in last year's elections in Bucharest

According to an analysis published last year by AtlasIntel, in the elections for the position of general mayor of the Capital in 2024, AtlasIntel's research was the closest to the official election result. These were at most 0.7pp outside the margin of error.

Nicușor Dan's result was underestimated by AtlasIntel by 2.4pp. All other polling houses underestimated Dan's result with errors between 4.6pp and 20.4pp.

The results obtained by Gabriela Firea, Cristian Popescu Piedone and Diana Iovanovici- Șoșoacă were estimated by AtlasIntel with errors smaller than one percentage point.

Not as close to the result, however, were the polls for the presidential elections. Before the election of November 24, 2024, which was later cancelled, HotNews.ro presented several opinion polls carried out by AtlasIntel. On November 22, 2024, an AtlasIntel survey showed the continued rise of Călin Georgescu, but ranked him in 5th place. However, he lost to Elena Lasconi in the 2nd round, as happened otherwise.