Trump’s closest ally in Europe faces toughest test yet as Hungary votes. Here’s what to know

By Christian Edwards, CNN

Budapest, Hungary (CNN) — Viktor Orbán is seeking a fifth consecutive term as Hungary’s prime minister. During 16 years in office, he has transformed his small central European country from a burgeoning Western democracy into an illiberal one, providing a model of right-wing populist governance that has won praise from abroad.

At home, however, many are tired of the system Orbán has built. The opposition Tisza party, led by Péter Magyar, has campaigned relentlessly against corruption and Hungary’s economic stagnation. Meanwhile, Orbán’s Fidesz party – backed by the United States and Russia – has focused mostly on perceived external threats to Hungary, such as those that the party says are posed by neighboring Ukraine and the European Union.

Tisza has held a double-digit lead over Fidesz in most polls for more than a year. But analysts say Hungary’s heavily gerrymandered electoral system means the result of the parliamentary vote could be tight.

Polls open Sunday morning and will close at 7 p.m. local time. Here’s what to know.

A former Fidesz insider

Magyar, 45, is widely seen as the most formidable opponent 62-year-old Orbán has faced since returning to power in 2010, having served his first term at the turn of the century. A former insider of Orbán’s Fidesz party, Magyar split with the party in 2024 in a high-profile rupture.

Earlier that year, Orbán’s government was rocked by public furor over the decision by Hungary’s president, Katalin Novák, to pardon the deputy director of a children’s home who had helped cover up the abuse of underaged boys. Judit Varga, Orbán’s justice minister at the time, was also involved in the pardon. Both women resigned.

Varga had previously been married to Magyar. In an explosive interview with Partizan, a Hungarian media outlet, Magyar accused Orbán of “hiding behind women’s skirts.” He also used the interview to share secrets he had gleaned from his proximity to government. “A few families own half the country,” he said.

Corruption has been the major theme of his election campaign. Magyar has visited scores of towns and cities, drawing huge crowds, even deep in traditional Fidesz territory. Tisza’s support skews toward the urban and the young: There is a generation of Hungarians who have grown up knowing nothing but Orbán. “Fidesz, get lost!” has been a common chant on the streets of Budapest this week.

Magyar’s campaign has been rigidly domestic. Tisza has stayed clear of international media, lest it be accused by Fidesz of colluding with foreign agents. Magyar has focused almost entirely on kitchen-table issues, such as Hungary’s stalling economy and poor healthcare, and spoken little about foreign policy or the EU. He has said next to nothing about Ukraine to avoid being painted as the sort of liberal European politician that Orbán has vilified for years.

This discipline has denied Orbán obvious lines of attack against Magyar. Instead, according to Magyar, Fidesz was planning to blackmail him by releasing a video of him “in an intimate moment with my then-girlfriend,” which it had secretly recorded.

“Yes, I’m a 45-year-old man; I have a sex life. With an adult partner,” he said in February. “Dear Fidesz cowards, go ahead and bring out everything.” So far that sexual kompromat, if it exists, has not been made public.

Orbán’s anti-Ukraine campaign

Hungarian is a difficult language – nationalists joke it is the language of heaven because it takes an eternity to learn. But even foreign ears have become familiar with a word that has resounded through Orbán’s campaign: “hárború” – “war.”

“Hárború” features in rallies, on billboards, in adverts online. At a final rally in Székesfehérvár near Budapest Friday, Orbán repeated his claim that he had kept Hungarians out of war, and pledged not to give Ukraine “our children, weapons or freedom.”

Hungary’s towns and cities are speckled with posters showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, often alongside Magyar. Some read: “Danger!” Others say: “Don’t let him have the last laugh” and “Let’s stop them!”

Orbán’s opponents say much of his electoral success has relied on finding alleged enemies: first, NGOs, then liberal universities, then migrants, then the LGBTQ movement – and now, Ukraine.

Last weekend, Orbán’s allies claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine had placed two backpacks containing explosives by a natural gas pipeline near Hungary’s border. In February, Orbán sent Hungarian soldiers to guard the country’s energy infrastructure, saying the move was aimed at preventing a Ukrainian attack.

In its election campaign, Fidesz has used a video generated by artificial intelligence showing Magyar storming into a Hungarian home to conscript a young man. Another AI-generated video depicts a little girl asking about her father – who is then seen kneeling in the mud, before being executed. “This is only a nightmare for now, but Brussels is preparing to make it reality,” the video says. “Fidesz is the only safe choice.”

Critics have noted the irony of Orbán’s line of attack against Ukraine. He emerged on Hungary’s political scene in the late 1980s as a liberal anti-communist, demanding the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary. Now, given Orbán’s friendliness with Russia and his demonizing of Ukraine, “Russians, go home!” has become a common anti-Fidesz chant among Tisza supporters.

Why America cares

The United States is unusually invested in Hungary’s election because the Trump administration wants the Orbán-style mode of government to succeed in Europe. The administration’s National Security Strategy, published last year, detailed how it would push for a more “like-minded” Europe – that is, anti-woke, anti-green, anti-immigrant.

“This American administration believes that there is a Trumpian revolution, and that this Trumpian revolution is coming to Europe, and that Europe is just one electoral cycle behind the United States,” Ivan Krastev, chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, Bulgaria, told CNN.

For that reason, the United States has spent significant diplomatic capital pushing for Orbán’s re-election. Vice President JD Vance spent two days in Budapest this week, pledging to help Orbán “as much as I possibly can.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said on social media Friday that his administration “stands ready to use the full Economic Might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s Economy, as we have done for our Great Allies in the past, if Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the Hungarian People ever need it.”

Why Europe cares

Orbán has long played a disruptive role in the EU, obstructing efforts to fund Ukraine’s defense against Russia. For months, Orbán has used Hungary’s membership of the bloc to veto a €90 billion ($105 billion) EU loan for Ukraine, citing a dispute with Kyiv over a damaged pipeline that transports Russian oil to Hungary.

“I don’t think anybody in Brussels, bar one or two proxy allies in Czechia and Slovakia, would be sorry to see the back of Orbán,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Because Magyar, for his part, has spoken little in support of Ukraine, some have speculated that he, too, may obstruct EU efforts to help Kyiv.

But, in Rahman’s view, Magyar has just been “careful” with his messaging during the campaign.

“I think Magyar would be a much more straightforward quantity for Brussels and the EU to deal with,” he told CNN.

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