Latvia's United List leads on 35.6 percent in an exit poll Kulbergs did not expect

Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs' United List was far ahead in Latvia's parliamentary election on Saturday, an exit poll by public broadcaster LSM found. The poll, run with the LETA news agency and Riga Stradins University, put United List at 35.6 percent. Kulbergs, at his party headquarters in Riga, said he had not expected a result that large, and that he hoped to remain prime minister.

Second was Latvia First on 11.3 percent, a populist party Reuters described as MAGA-style, which had campaigned toward the country's ethnic Russian minority. The Progressives were next. LSM's table put them at 11.1 percent. Reuters, in an early line, put the Progressives at 11.3, level with Latvia First. Sovereign Power, overtly pro-Russian in Reuters' description, was on 10.8 percent. The National Alliance followed on 8.7 percent, and New Unity, the party that led the previous government, on 6.7. Below the 5 percent threshold in the same poll sat the Greens and Farmers Union at 3.7, Development/For! at 3.1, and We Change the Rules at 3.0. Parties under 2 percent would also miss the state funding that runs until the next Saeima election.

The 5 percent bar is what turns a poll into a parliament. On these numbers six lists would enter the 100-seat Saeima: United List, Latvia First, the Progressives, Sovereign Power, the National Alliance and New Unity. Official counts from the Central Election Commission had not replaced the exit poll when Kulbergs spoke. Exit polls in Latvia have been close before and wrong at the margin before. A lead of this size is hard to overturn. The order of the smaller parties is not.

Kulbergs was explicit about one coalition he does not want. He said he would not govern with Latvia First. That refusal matters because 35.6 percent, if it holds, is a dominant plurality and not a majority. United List still needs partners. The available pro-Ukraine, or at least non-Russia-facing, lists in the poll are the Progressives, the National Alliance and New Unity. Together with United List they clear half the vote on these figures. Sovereign Power, at 10.8, is the list he is least likely to call. Latvia First, at 11.3, is the one he has already ruled out in public.

The election was held in the shadow of the Ukraine war and of drone incidents that Latvian officials have blamed on Russia. Moscow calls those accusations baseless and a product of anti-Russian hysteria. For voters in a Baltic state that shares a border with Russia, the argument is not abstract. It is about whether the next government spends more on the eastern border, keeps the current line on sanctions, and treats the Russian-speaking vote as a constituency to court or a risk to contain. Latvia First's second place, if confirmed, says a sizeable minority wanted the second option rejected. United List's lead says a much larger group did not.

New Unity's 6.7 percent is the fall of the party that shaped Latvian government for years. A result under 7, next to a United List result above 35, is a change of manager inside the same broad foreign policy, not a change of foreign policy. Kulbergs is already prime minister. A win at this level would let him rebuild the cabinet with more of his own people and fewer of the old New Unity ministers, provided the smaller parties accept the seats he offers.

The commission's count is the document that replaces all of this. Until it is published, the working picture is an exit poll, a prime minister who sounded surprised, a second-place party he will not sit with, and a pro-Russian list above 10 percent that will have a voice in the Saeima if the threshold numbers hold. Coalition talks start from that map. They do not start from a majority.