Radek Sikorski wants to be Poland’s president. Is his wife’s Trump-bashing a problem?

WARSAW — Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski is running to be a candidate in his country’s May presidential election — but his wife, the U.S. historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, is a very high-profile and mordant critic of Donald Trump.
How does that play out?
Dangerously, according to Sikorski’s critics. Poland’s main foreign policy ally and arms supplier is the United States, and the anti-Sikorski camp is warning that even the smallest ructions in relations with Trump — a man to bear grudges —would be disastrous for a nation on NATO’s front line against Russia.
Some of Sikorski’s adversaries also say they’ve already taken steps to poison Trump against him.
Sikorski is one of two candidates running in Friday’s primary for the Civic Coalition party, headed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. The winner will be announced on Saturday.
Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize winner who writes for The Atlantic, frequently warns of rising authoritarianism around the world and of the danger that Trump poses to American democracy. A recent Atlantic column was entitled: “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.”
Dominik Tarczyński, a member of the European Parliament with the nationalist opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, tagged along for the Republican election night victory party and said he specifically noted Applebaum’s comments in a note to Trump’s campaign.
“I can disclose that Donald Trump’s staff has received all materials with negative statements about him,” he said. “Donald Trump is aware of what Radosław Sikorski’s wife wrote about him, [and] what Polish politicians, including Donald Tusk, said about him.”
That sparked a withering response from Sikorski, who denounced “sucking up and snitching” by opposition politicians.
Applebaum’s stance on Trump has also been raised by Polish media, with interviewers querying whether it undermines Sikorski’s presidential bid.
“My wife is an outstanding historian and publicist. Also in the American context. By the way, in the past she also voted for Republicans,” Sikorski fired back in an interview on state TV.
In response to a question from POLITICO, Applebaum said: “The era when wives were treated as extensions of their husbands is over. I have no role in this campaign or my husband’s job. Given that [Vice President-elect] JD Vance has described Donald Trump as ‘Hitler,’ I am surprised that a serious publication would devote time to such a cynical, contrived narrative.”
Although Trump has in the past expressed affection for Poland, and had close ties with the PiS government that ruled the country during his first term as president, it’s unlikely that the country will be a foreign policy priority compared with China and trade tariffs. Additionally, as Applebaum pointed out, many people have said negative things about Trump, which hasn’t harmed their ability to do business with him.
For PiS, however, Applebaum is simply a means to attack Sikorski, who is the more conservative of the two primary candidates.
Sikorski’s rival is liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, who narrowly lost the 2020 presidential election to incumbent PiS-allied Andrzej Duda.
Poland has a two-round voting system. If a candidate fails to win an outright majority in the first round, a second round is held two weeks later with the top two vote winners facing off against each other.
According to an internal party survey made public earlier this week, Trzaskowski leads the (so far unnamed) PiS candidate by 40 percent to 28 percent, and in the second round would secure a comfortable 57-43 win. 
Sikorski, meanwhile, would trail the PiS candidate in the first round, losing 28-30, but would still claim victory in the second round with 54 percent to 46 percent.
In the second round, Sikorski would likely look for support on the center right — overlapping with PiS — while Trzaskowski would likely hunt for extra votes on the left.
Sikorski’s biggest popular appeal is his experience in international diplomacy and his long-standing hawkish stance on Russia, something he has underlined in a time of geopolitical turmoil. Speaking excellent English, Sikorski has proven an effective opponent of Russian lies on the international stage.
He has launched an aggressive primary campaign, and won the backing of diverse figures such as conservative lawmaker Roman Giertych and former two-time leftist President Aleksander Kwaśniewski.
“We were on opposite sides of the political divide once but times have changed,” Kwaśniewski said in a video circulated on social media. “There’s a war near us, the threat is close, and security issues will dominate political life for years to come, especially the upcoming presidential election.”
“You have to admit that if someone can bring together a coalition ranging from Giertych to Kwaśniewski, it means they know how to unite Poles,” Sikorski quipped at a rally in the central city of Łódź.
PiS has timed the unveiling of its presidential frontrunner for Saturday after a final decision by party chief Jarosław Kaczyński.