In the second round of the presidential elections, Volodymyr Zelensky received a record number of votes − 73.22% of voters, or 13.5 million Ukrainians voted for him. Of course, not all of these people were devoted fans of the comedian. In the first round, Zelensky received 30.6% of the vote, while his main competitor Petro Poroshenko got 17.8%. However, the antipathy towards the then-president was so great that Zelensky managed to accumulate the overwhelming majority of votes from other candidates before the second round.
Zelensky’s core electorate consisted of youth and women − especially those who are not particularly interested in politics. As for other categories of voters, there was a very wide range. Almost all supporters of pro-Russian parties, including communists (except for a negligible number of “true”, ideological followers of Lenin and Stalin), voted for Zelensky. They all hated Poroshenko for his anti-Russian policy and were ready to give their votes to anyone who could defeat him. This group also includes supporters of Putin, who understood very well the danger that the incompetent comedian coming to power posed to Ukraine. That’s why they voted for him. The worse for Ukraine, the better for Russia.
Nearly everyone who thought that Poroshenko was a corrupt politician and that Ukraine would be better off without him, even with an incompetent Zelensky, cast their votes for Zelensky. The base of this group consisted of supporters of Mikhail Saakashvili and the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi. It also includes ultra-right nationalists from “Azov”. The latter enjoyed special support from the Minister of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov, who, as is known, was one of Poroshenko’s most vehement enemies.
Overall, it can be asserted that the majority of Zelensky’s voters were people who were poorly versed in politics. People who believed in the advertising billboard “The end of the era of poverty on April 21, 2019”. People who could not understand the difference between a fictional character in a TV series and a real presidential candidate. People who took the propaganda from Kolomoisky’s TV channel at face value, that Zelensky would become Ukraine’s new Ronald Reagan.