Former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia won the New Patriotic Party’s nomination to be its 2028 Presidential Candidate after Saturday’s primaries.
Dr. Bawumia polled 110,643 votes, representing 56.48% of the total valid votes to claim victory in a fierce contest involving three strong forces.
His closest competitors, Kennedy Agyapong and Dr. Bryan Acheampong got 46,554 and 36,303, representing 23.8% and 18.3% respectively.
In an emphatic manner, Dr. Bawumia was completely dominant across the country, securing emphatic wins in 14 regions, while Kennedy Agyapong won only in Central Region, with Bryan Acheampong winning the other, Volta Region.
2023 VRS 2026
In 2023, Dr. Bawumia secured victory with 61.7% compared with this year’s 56.48%. With this, a surface glance of the two results clearly suggests the 2023 result was better, due to the higher 61.47%.
However, that is misleading because a critical, comparative analysis of the 2023 and 2026 results reveals a more emphatic and broader endorsement of Bawumia in 2026 than in 2023.
The former Vice President received broader and widespread support in all corners of the country, as far as constituencies won and shared votes between him and his closest competitors.
In terms of votes gap between Bawumia and the second-placed candidate, the former Vice President won the 2023 primaries with a vote gap of 46,214 between him and Kennedy Agyapong, while in 2026, he won with a huge gap of 64,089 votes.
On the spread of votes across regions, which underscores broader appeal among delegates, Dr. Bawumia showed remarkable dominance in 10 regions, winning in all constituencies in Western, Bono, Ahafo, Bono East, Western North, Savannah, North East, Upper West, Northern and Oti Regions.
In the Upper East, where some analysts expected Bawumia not to do well in some constituencies, he again dominated, winning 14 out of 15 constituencies, to make it nearly 100% sweep of constituencies in 11 out of 16 regions, which was not the case in 2023.
In two of the regions with the biggest number of votes and constituencies; Ashanti and Greater Accra Regions, Dr. Bawumia again, did better than 2023.
In the Ashanti Region, out of the 47 constituencies, Dr. Bawumia won 45, with one of the two constituencies he didn’t win being Bosomtwe, where fellow aspirant, Dr. Osei Yaw Adutwum is MP, and therefore, won comfortably.
In the Greater Accra Region, Dr. Bawumia won 32 out of 34 constituencies, which was a significant improvement on the 19 constituencies he won in the last primaries.
With the Greater Accra Region being the region with the highest number of votes, Bawumia also pulled a bigger wining margin in terms of votes between him and his closest contender, Kennedy Agyapong.
In 2023, Dr. Bawumia won Greater Accra with about 2000 votes between him and Kennedy, but in 2026, he won with a commanding vote margin of about 7000 between him and his closest contender in the region Kennedy.
In the Central Region, home of Bawumia of Kennedy Agyapong, and the only region he won, Dr. Bawumia also performed better than he did in 2023. He won 7 constituencies against 4 in the 2023 primaries.
And in the Eastern Region, where Dr. Bryan Acheampong hails from and was expected to be pose some threat, Dr. Bawumia’s dominance showed as he won the region comfortably with nearly 5000 votes margin.
Over all, Dr. Bawumia won 232 out of the 276 constituencies across the country.
Clearly, the percentage of the final result may show a bigger percentage for Bawumia in 2023, but in reality, the 2026 victory of 56.48% is more emphatic and with broader delegate appeal than in 2023.