The election campaign was muted, with the major opposition figures having fled the country or being imprisoned.

Golos also noted that the opposition candidates in the gubernatorial elections did not have large campaigns, did not hold public meetings with voters, and had small electoral budgets, with some candidates only running their campaign on social networks.

BBC News Russian mentioned that the brightest campaign was held in Khakassia, where both the head of the republic and deputies of the local parliament were elected at the same time, with the United Russia candidate, Sergey Sokol, running against the incumbent governor Valentin Konovalov from the Communist Party.

[2] The Golos election monitor said that it had received almost 600 complaints of violations as of the afternoon on the first day of voting, with threats of violence, vote buying and people being barred from casting ballots being among the most common complaints.

It also said it had filed 75 complaints with authorities and received official responses in 28 cases.