Nawrocki's win turns Poland toward nationalism and casts doubt on Tusk's centrist government

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Conservative Karol Nawrocki’s victory in Poland’s weekend presidential runoff has set the country on a more nationalist course — and cast doubt on the viability of the centrist government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk after the defeat of his liberal ally.

Nawrocki, who was supported by U.S. President Donald Trump, won 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%, according to the final results of Sunday's runoff published Monday morning.

By evening, Tusk said he would ask parliament to hold a vote of confidence in his coalition government, a fragile multiparty alliance that includes left-wingers, centrists and agrarian conservatives.

Tusk’s government exists separately from the presidency, but the president holds power to veto laws, and Nawrocki’s win will make it extremely difficult for Tusk to press his pro-European agenda. The race revealed deep divisions in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union.

The result leaves Tusk politically wounded, and there are questions about whether his coalition can survive to the end of its term in late 2027. There were already calls on Monday from political opponents for him to step down.

Tusk said in a video posted to social media that there's a lot of work for the government to do, and its first test would be the vote of confidence held in “the near future.” If Tusk survives the confidence vote, it would show he still has a mandate to govern.

He also said he was prepared to work with Nawrocki if the willingness is there.

“I want everyone to see — including our opponents, at home and abroad — that we are ready for this situation, that we understand the gravity of the moment, and that we do not intend to back down, not even a step,” he said.

In his first public comments since his win was announced, Nawrocki thanked those who voted for him and said he would work for the causes that matter to them.

“We want to live in a safe country with a strong economy, one that cares for the most vulnerable. A country that matters in international, European, and transatlantic relations. A country that cherishes its centuries-old traditions and respects its history,” he wrote on social media.

Nawrocki’s supporters describe him as the embodiment of traditional, patriotic values. Those who oppose secular trends, including LGBTQ+ visibility, have embraced him, viewing him as a reflection of the values they grew up with.

Most day-to-day power in the Polish political system rests with a prime minister chosen by the parliament. However, the president’s role isn’t merely ceremonial. The office also holds the power to influence foreign policy.

Nawrocki will succeed Andrzej Duda, a conservative whose second and final term ends on Aug. 6.

Trzaskowski conceded defeat and congratulated Nawrocki. “I fought for us to build a strong, safe, honest, and empathetic Poland together,” he wrote on social media. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to convince the majority of citizens of my vision for Poland.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was among the leaders offering congratulations to Nawrocki, an acknowledgment of Poland's key role as a neighbor, ally and hub for Western weapons sent to Kyiv. He called Poland “a pillar of regional and European security."

Trump exulted Nawrocki's victory. “Congratulations Poland, you picked a WINNER!” he said on his social media platform Truth Social.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also congratulated Nawrocki, saying in a statement, “The Polish people have spoken and support a stronger military and securing their borders. Poland is a model Ally and a key contributor to strengthening the NATO Alliance and its sovereign integrity against today’s challenges and those ahead.”

Nawrocki supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia's full-scale invasion, but he's more critical of Zelenskyy than Polish leaders to date, and he opposes NATO membership for Kyiv.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who shares Nawrocki's national conservative worldview, hailed Nawrocki's “fantastic victory.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered measured congratulations: “We are all stronger together in our community of peace, democracy, and values. So let us work to ensure the security and prosperity of our common home.”

Nawrocki, a 42-year-old amateur boxer and historian, was tapped by the Law and Justice party as part of its push for a fresh start.

The party governed Poland from 2015 to 2023, when it lost power to Tusk's centrist coalition. Some political observers predicted it would never make a comeback, and Nawrocki was chosen as a new face who would not be burned by the scandals of the party's rule.

The election outcome vindicated party leader Jarosław Kaczyński's strategy, but on Monday many were also blaming the increasingly unpopular Tusk and Trzaskowski.

Nawrocki has most recently been the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, which embraces nationalist historical narratives. He led efforts to topple monuments to the Soviet Red Army in Poland, and Russia responded by putting him on a wanted list, according to Polish media reports.

Nawrocki’s candidacy was clouded by allegations of past connections to criminal figures and his participation in a violent street brawl. He denies the criminal links but was unapologetic about the street fight, saying he had taken part in various “noble” fights in his life. The revelations did not seem to hurt his support among right-wing voters, many of whom see the allegations as politically motivated.

Trump had made it clear he wanted Nawrocki as Poland's president.

He welcomed Nawrocki to the White House a month ago. And last week, the conservative group CPAC held its first meeting in Poland to give Nawrocki a boost. Kristi Noem, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary and a prominent Trump ally, praised Nawrocki and urged Poles to vote for him.

The United States has about 10,000 troops stationed in Poland, and Noem suggested that military ties could deepen with Nawrocki as president.

A common refrain from Nawrocki's supporters is that he will restore “normality,” as they believe Trump has done. U.S. flags often appeared at Nawrocki's rallies, and his supporters believed that he offered a better chance for good ties with the Trump administration.

Nawrocki has also echoed some of Trump's language on Ukraine. He promises to continue Poland's support for Ukraine, but has been critical of Zelenskyy, accusing him of taking advantage of allies. He has accused Ukrainian refugees of taking advantage of Polish generosity, vowing to prioritize Poles for social services such as health care and schooling.

Presidential candidate Rafal Trzaskowski, a liberal pro-European Union figure, center, kisses his wife Malgorzata Trzaskowska at his headquarters after the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

A woman prepares to cast her vote during the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party greets supporters as he arrives at his headquarters after the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party, second right, greets supporters at his headquarters after the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

Presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki, a conservative historian backed by the right-wing Law and Justice party addresses supporters at his headquarters after the presidential election runoff in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)