The presidential election ended with record turnout and winner results.

The results of the Russian presidential elections that ended on Sunday exceeded the latest predictions of sociologists both in terms of turnout and the result of the winner. According to preliminary data, more than 74% of voters took part in the voting (with a forecast of 70–72%), and President Vladimir Putin, whom sociologists predicted from 80% to 82% of the vote, received more than 87%. Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and Vladislav Davankov (New People) are vying for second place, gaining just over 4% (according to the Central Election Commission after processing almost half of the protocols), and the leader of the LDPR Leonid Slutsky closes the race (3.1%).

The first election results, as usual, were presented immediately after 21:00 Moscow time by sociologists who conducted exit polls (polls at the exit of polling stations). According to VTsIOM (the survey was conducted at 1,400 polling stations in 69 constituent entities of the Russian Federation), Vladimir Putin received 87% of the votes (before that, his maximum result in the presidential elections was 76.7% in 2018), followed by Nikolai Kharitonov (4.6% ), Vladislav Davankov (4.2%) and Leonid Slutsky (3%), and another 1.2% of voters spoiled their ballots. The candidates were ranked in the same order according to the results of the exit poll of the Public Opinion Foundation (1,320 polling stations in 82 regions): Vladimir Putin – 87.8%, Nikolai Kharitonov – 4.7%, Vladislav Davankov – 3.6%, Leonid Slutsky – 2.5% and 1.4% of spoiled ballots.

In parallel, the Central Election Commission (CEC) began publishing the results of the vote count in the regions where voting ended the earliest. Before the announcement of the results, the chairman of the commission, Ella Pamfilova, expressed “huge gratitude” to the entire country, which passed these elections with great dignity, as a single people – despite all attempts to prevent this from happening.” From the first published data (after processing 28.88% of the protocols) it followed that Mr. Putin is confidently in the lead with 87.72% of the votes, candidates Kharitonov and Davankov are fighting for second place (3.92% and 3.82%, respectively), and list Mr. Slutsky (2.98%).

After processing 56% of the protocols, Vladimir Putin’s result dropped to 87.3%, the gap between the nominees of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the “New People” increased slightly (4.16% and 4%, respectively), and Leonid Slutsky rose to 3.12%. At the same time, over 90% of the votes (from among those regions where all ballots were counted by 22:00 Moscow time) were cast for the current president, in particular, voters in Chukotka (90.5%), the Jewish Autonomous Region (92.35%), as well as Donetsk (95.23%) and Lugansk (94.12%) people’s republics (DPR and LPR).

In Moscow, according to the first preliminary data provided by the chairman of the city election commission Olga Kirillova, Vladimir Putin received 89.1% of the votes, Vladislav Davankov was second (4.4%), and third and fourth places were shared by Leonid Slutsky and Nikolai Kharitonov (3.3 each). %). But the first results of federal remote electronic voting (DEG) – without taking into account Moscow, where online elections were held on its own platform – showed a slightly different picture: after Mr. Putin (87.41%) was candidate Davankov (6.28%) , and the liberal democrat Slutsky (3.75%) beat the communist Kharitonov (2.56%).

The CEC published data on voter activity throughout Sunday, and by 14:00 Moscow time it was announced that the total turnout in Russia as a whole exceeded the same figure in 2018 (67.54%), when the elections were held on the same day.

After 21:00 Moscow time, the CEC reported that voter activity reached 74.22% (taking into account the DEG), but this figure may increase after processing 100% of the protocols.

As for turnout in individual regions, by the end of the third day of voting, the leadership in this parameter passed to Chechnya. By 18:00 on Sunday (hereinafter the data is given mainly for this time), 96.5% of voters in the republic had voted. This is more than in the 2018 presidential elections, when 91.5% of residents went to the polling stations, but less than the results of 2012 (99.6%). The leader on the first day, Chukotka, finished voting with 87.5% turnout, and the leader of the second day, Tuva, with 94.1%, which in both cases is higher than the activity of six years ago (82.3% and 93.7%, respectively). Kuzbass is also in close proximity to the Chechen result, where 94.3% of voters went to the polling stations. This time, Kemerovo residents voted noticeably more actively than before, and by the end of the second day they repeated the turnout of 2018 (82.2%).

According to preliminary data, the 80% turnout level was also exceeded in Kabardino-Balkaria (92.6%), Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (92.5%), North Ossetia (91%), Jewish Autonomous Region (88.7%) , Karachay-Cherkessia (87.6%), Dagestan (86.7%), Crimea (85.5%), Ingushetia (85%), Krasnodar Territory (84.9%), Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug (84. 5%), Belgorod (83.8%), Bryansk (83.5%) and Tyumen regions (82.8%), Mordovia (82.8%), Bashkiria (82.3%), Tatarstan (81.5 %) and Stavropol region (80.6%). At the same time, in almost all of the listed regions, activity as of 18:00 already exceeded the final turnout of 2018, and in some places it was quite significant: for example, in the Jewish Autonomous Region it was higher by 28.4 percentage points. The previous result was significantly increased Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (+14.8 p.p.), Crimea (+13.9 p.p.), as well as the “front-line” Belgorod and Bryansk regions (+10.6 p.p. and +3.8 p.p. . respectively). The only region in the leading category where turnout has dipped a little so far is Dagestan: in 2018 it was 0.8 percentage points higher there.

Let us note that in all the new subjects, voter activity also turned out to be very high.

In particular, in the DPR and LPR, according to the latest available data, the turnout was 88.2% and 87.1%, respectively, and in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions – 85% and 83.8%. The regions of Siberia, in turn, will probably show the most modest turnout. For example, as of 18:00 local time, 51.7% of voters voted in the Altai Territory, 53.5% in the Tomsk Region, and 56.1% in the Novosibirsk Region. So far in all three cases this is less than in the 2018 elections.

Political scientist Rostislav Turovsky, commenting on preliminary data on regional turnout to Kommersant, noted an almost universal increase in voter turnout. “But it looks quite smooth, that is, there are few cases of regions with low turnout suddenly becoming very active. We can rather say that the elections affected a certain part of the previously inactive electorate, and this happened almost everywhere,” the expert explained.

As for the preliminary results of the four candidates, they can be considered unsuccessful for Nikolai Kharitonov and successful for Vladislav Davankov, believes political scientist Alexei Makarkin. According to his assessment, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation was faced with a flow of votes to the “main” candidate (the LDPR already experienced the same thing in 2018), and the “pale campaign” of candidate Kharitonov only aggravated this process. “As a result, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation received a decline, which stood out even against the background of Grudinin’s result, which was not the most impressive (in the 2018 presidential elections, the presidential candidate from the Communist Party, the head of the Lenin State Farm near Moscow, Pavel Grudinin, received 11.8% of the votes.— “Kommersant”). The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has always had at least a double-digit figure, but now it has sharply decreased,” the expert stated. But “strategic voting” worked in favor of candidate Davankov – when voters choose not the optimal, but a candidate closer to them, Mr. Makarkin believes. Well, Leonid Slutsky is close to fulfilling his “minimum program” of 3% of the votes, which guarantees his party state funding, the political scientist summarizes.

Politics department, corset “Kommersant”