Vice President Joseph Boakai was running in second place with 29.1 percent of a total of more than 1.5 million votes counted so far. Boakai was more than 280,000 votes ahead of the third placed candidate, lawyer Charles Brumskine, on 9.8 percent.
With less than five percent of precincts yet to be counted, it appeared mathematically impossible that the order would change.
"Next time we come here we'll probably be giving you the final results," the commission's chairman Jerome Korkoya told reporters following its brief announcement.
He said turnout based on votes counted so far was 74.52 percent.
A total of 20 candidates competed in Tuesday's first round seeking to succeed Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in what would be Liberia's first democratic transfer of power in more than 70 years.
(Reporting by James Harding Giahyue and Alphonso Toweh; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Jane Merriman)
