JD Vance’s Hungary visit may help Viktor Orbán politically

US Vice President JD Vance touched down in Budapest this morning for a two-day trip officially framed as an effort to strengthen ties between Washington and Budapest.

Yet the political stakes are far sharper: his visit is widely seen as an attempt to lift Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose Fidesz party trails the main centre-right opposition by nine percentage points in the polls ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election.

The contest marks the most serious electoral test of Fidesz’s rule so far, after four straight election victories and 16 years in office.

If the centre-right Tisza party defeats Fidesz on Sunday, the Trump administration would lose one of its most important ideological partners in Europe.

Fidesz has built its identity around nationalism, anti-immigration policies and a Christian-conservative line on social issues, while also tightening its grip over the judiciary and both public and private media.

The party has also taken aim at the teachings of progressive universities.

Mr Orbán’s government has kept close relations with Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, like the US president, Mr Orbán has placed a premium on maintaining good personal ties with Mr Putin, meeting the Russian leader three times since 2023.

Last month, Donald Trump backed Mr Orbán’s re-election in a video message to CPAC Hungary, the Hungarian branch of the annual US gathering of right-wing politicians and ideologues, describing Mr Orbán as “a truly strong and powerful leader”.

Mr Vance offered similarly explicit backing for Mr Orbán ahead of their joint press conference in Budapest.

“The President loves you, and so do I,” he told Hungary’s leader.

“You’re such an important part of what has made Europe strong and prosperous. You’re one of the true statesmen, I would say one of the only true statesmen in Europe, one of the few people who can talk to people from all over the world, can play the role of peacemaker, can play the role of economic statesman.”

There is some basis for the claim that Mr Orbán is among the few European leaders able to pick up the phone and speak with the leaders of the US, China and Russia.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico is perhaps the other.

But Mr Vance’s economic praise for Mr Orbán sits uneasily with Hungary’s current record.

Growth has been weak compared with other Central European economies, while some €18bn in frozen EU cohesion and recovery funds – withheld over failures to meet the bloc’s rule-of-law standards – has slowed investment in public infrastructure projects.

Polling indicates that Fidesz is now behind Tisza, led by Péter Magyar, a 44-year-old lawyer and former Fidesz insider.

His anti-corruption message has energised an electorate that had appeared worn down, with a majority now seemingly ready to hand another party the reins after 16 years of Fidesz government.

Fidesz has centred its campaign on attacks against Ukraine and its President, Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that Hungary could be pulled into the war if Mr Magyar’s Tisza party wins power.

It remains unclear whether Mr Vance’s appearance in the Hungarian capital will be enough to shift momentum back toward Mr Orbán’s Fidesz party.

Recovering a nine-point deficit with only four full days of campaigning left is a steep task.

Still, the visit underlines how far senior figures in the Trump administration are prepared to go to support European populist parties that broadly align with their agenda.

Mr Vance’s criticism of “bureaucrats in Brussels” at this morning’s press conference echoed the arguments he made against European liberalism at last year’s Munich Security Conference.

Even so, polling suggests Hungarian voters are leaning toward a change of government, and one of Mr Magyar’s central campaign promises is to repair relations with the EU.