'Gallup' Poll: Iotova and Valchev Lead Presidential Race Convincingly with 44.9% Support

Iliana Iotova and Kiril Valchev are leading the presidential race with 44.9% support among voters, according to a national survey by Gallup International Balkan conducted between 26 September and 6 October 2026.

Andrey Gyurov and Georgi Kandev are in second place with 24.8%. Their candidacy has emerged as the main challenger to the leading presidential ticket and its most likely opponent in a potential run-off.

Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin are in third place with 10.9% support. They are followed by several other presidential tickets: Ivan Hristanov and Stoyanka Cherkezova – 4.1%, Radostin Vasilev and Krasimir Manov – 2.6%, Nikolay Nenchev and Tsveta Kirilova – 2.1%, Ivaylo Simeonov and Kosyo Stoychev – 1.7%, and Ivelin Mihaylov and Yuliana Mateeva – 1.6%.

Gallup expects voter turnout to be lower than at the most recent parliamentary elections, with between 2.3 million and 2.4 million voters expected to go to the polls (around 36%). More than half of those who have firmly decided to vote – 52.8% – say they made their choice before the start of the election campaign, describing it as “traditional”.

“This indicates the presence of stable and loyal electoral cores around the political forces supporting the leading candidates. This type of vote is relatively predictable and less susceptible to short-term developments during the campaign, including political scandals, compromising material or individual media conflicts. In this way, core supporters provide a basic degree of electoral stability for the candidates backed by the larger political formations,” Gallup’s pollsters comment.

Among the conclusions is that, at the start of the campaign, the presidential race is structured around a clear leader and a clearly defined second contender. The significant gap between them and the remaining presidential tickets, combined with the expected low voter turnout, makes a run-off involving the two the most likely scenario given current voter sentiment.

At the same time, the data show that the outcome of a second round cannot be mechanically derived from the candidates’ support in the first. The behaviour of voters whose candidates fail to reach the second round, the degree of mobilisation of party cores that remain outside the active race in the first round, and the ability of the two finalists to attract peripheral and undecided voters would be of key importance.

The national survey by Gallup International Balkan was conducted between 26 September and 6 October 2026 and was based on 987 interviews with adult Bulgarian citizens.