US Vice President JD Vance is traveling to Budapest to shore up support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz party faces the toughest election in a decade.
The White House announced last week that Vance would arrive in Hungary on Tuesday for two days of bilateral talks.
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In February, US President Donald Trump supported right-wing leader Orbán. Ahead of the Hungarian general election on April 12, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Hungary and presented the Hungarian parliamentary election. apply
Kim Lane Schaeffele, a sociology professor at Princeton University who has been an analyst and critic of the Orbán government for years, said the visit was intended to highlight the close relationship between Trump and his Hungarian counterpart.
“Orban is going to use the fact that he has Trump’s support to make a big deal out of it. That’s why Vance is coming,” she said, adding that she was skeptical that Vance’s trip would have much of an impact on the election outcome.
“If you look at Hungarian opinion polls, the opposition is showing an 8-12% lead, and some recent polls are showing a lead of up to 20%. A single visit from a relatively unknown American vice president is not going to change that.”
strong opposition
Orbán’s 16-year term was marked by reforms that weakened the independence of institutions such as the judiciary and media and that critics say tilted the electoral system in favor of Orbán and his Fidesz party.
But despite what the opposition described as a severely unbalanced electoral environment, most opinion polls showed the 62-year-old Orbán trailing 45-year-old opposition leader Peter Magyar and his Tisza Party.
Magyar is a former senior Fidesz official who broke with the party two years ago and has emerged as a public critic of Orbán’s rule.
His campaign focused on corruption, worsening social services and economic conditions, and Orbán’s combative relationship with the European Union, often focused on immigration and aid to Ukraine.
The European Union will suspend billions of euros in funding to Hungary in 2022 due to democratic backsliding and declining judicial independence.
Mr Mazars promised reforms that would bring about a friendlier relationship with the European Union and restore suspended funds.
Orbán has portrayed the opposition as a destabilizing force that will sell out the country’s national interests on behalf of Ukraine and the European Union, while Mazar’s right-wing politics mean there will be little change in policies on issues such as immigration.
“Magyar is center-right. He basically believes in many things that Orban has done except corruption. On the EU side, he is a bit Eurosceptic, but he wants his money back,” Scheppele said.
Blueprint for the American Right
Orban’s approach to consolidating power and embracing far-right politics has mired relations in Europe but has become a source of inspiration for prominent members of the American far right and the Trump administration, such as J.D. Vance.
Hungary previously hosted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual summit that brings together individuals and groups from across the United States and allies from other countries to discuss the future of the conservative movement.
When CPAC convened in Budapest in 2024, Trump sent a video praising Orbán for “proudly fighting on the front lines to save Western civilization.”
Shared resentment toward Muslims, immigrants and liberal political centers like universities has helped strengthen those ties, and Vance himself has enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Orban’s government.
When he was selected as Trump’s running mate in July 2024, Orbán’s political director shared a photo of himself posing with Vance, captioning it: “A Trump-Vance administration seems like a perfect fit.”
Orbán’s Hungary is at the center of the Trump administration’s policy shift toward Europe and is firmly allied with far-right parties and immigration restrictionists in countries such as France and Germany.
Schaeffele said Orbán’s ties to the Trump administration and his status as a global far-right icon could be of limited use in an election focused primarily on domestic issues.
But she pointed out that more tangible steps, such as the Trump administration’s pledge of U.S. financial support if Orbán wins, could give him a chance in the final days of the election.
“The most notable thing is that when Orbán came to the U.S. recently, Trump seemed to promise a financial safety net if Orbán won,” Schaeffele said, adding that the U.S. had taken similar steps before Argentina’s 2025 midterm elections to bolster right-wing ally Javier Millais (now Argentina’s president).
“Trump has never made any formal promises of that kind and is now denying that he has made any specific promises,” Scheffele added. “But the Orbán people think that if Trump wins the election, he will block them.” “If Vance makes that kind of announcement, it could be a real game-changer.”
