Zelensky leads presidential poll with 23.5%, Poroshenko polls second

President Volodymyr Zelensky leads presidential polls with a share of 23.5% of decided voters, maintaining a 10.1% lead over ex-president and leader of the European Solidarity party Petro Poroshenko, who got 13.4%.

Zelensky's support 2.5 years into his presidency is 6% down from the result he scored in the first round of the presidential election in 2019, when 30% of Ukrainians backed him. Poroshenko is 2% down from his 2019 result.

Other candidates polled below 10%.

The polling was conducted by the Rating group on Dec. 6-8. It gathered responses from 2,500 respondents throughout Ukraine (excluding Russian-occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas) via telephone.

In response to the question "Which candidate would you not vote for under any circumstances," Poroshenko got the worst result with 47% of the votes against him. President Zelensky was fourth with 33%, faring slightly better than Batkivshchyna party leader Yulia Tymoshenko with 37% and pro-Kremlin Opposition Platform – For Life party co-leader Yuriy Boyko with 35%.

The group also conducted polls regarding parliamentary elections. The results showed that support for Zelensky's ruling Servant of the People party was at 18%, slightly increasing from the latest poll, while European Solidarity showed losses at 13.7%. The UDAR party, headed by Kyiv mayor and former boxing champion Vitali Klitchko, failed to pass the 5% threshold, receiving only 4.2%.