Vance in Budapest: Viktor Orbán’s last throw of the MAGA dice

BUDAPEST — JD Vance will visit Hungary on Tuesday in an 11th-hour attempt to boost key MAGA ally Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before an all-important election on Sunday, but the U.S. vice president’s trip appears unlikely to swing an increasingly bitter race.

President Donald Trump has already issued several endorsements of Orbán — a Kremlin-aligned proponent of “illiberal democracy” — but polls suggest those interventions have done little to boost the struggling prime minister, who faces the battle of his political life to extend his 16 years in power.

Orbán says he is “looking forward” to Vance’s trip, and with a Budapest press conference and a flag-waving rally at a 24,000-seat football stadium on Tuesday will be attempting to seize what momentum he can from it.

For the Hungarian prime minister it’s a singular opportunity to portray himself as the Trump administration’s pre-eminent European ally. Trump has previously praised him as “one of the strongest” world leaders, and Orbán anticipated MAGA’s obsessions over a decade ago with his assertive nationalism, his contempt for the EU, and his success in asserting influence over Hungary’s media and public institutions.

For the White House, the visit is a sign of appreciation that Orbán stuck with Trump through the tougher times — especially his four years out of power and his 2024 election campaign — when other world leaders shunned him.

Donald Trump and JD Vance meet with Viktor Orbán during a bilateral lunch in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington on November 7, 2025. | Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images

“Orbán has been with the president for a very long time. He was with him through the trials and tribulations, through the entire campaign. There wasn’t any world leader who wanted to meet with Trump or bonded, consistently made trips to Mar-a-Lago, made an effort to keep in contact with him,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to share a perspective on the trip they weren’t authorized to disclose publicly.

“I think we’re sort of like repaying the favor here — it’s a way to show that you’ve been with us through thick and thin, and we’ll do the same for you,” the official added.

Polls spell trouble for Orbán

The display of transatlantic loyalty probably won’t alter the political equation in Hungary, however, where a growing swell of opposition to the ruling Fidesz party is focused on the country’s economic weakness and the cronyism and corruption associated with Orbán. That popular resistance has put Péter Magyar’s Tisza party in a strong position to win the vote, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls, which has shown him ahead since late 2024.

Dislike for Trump among Hungarians is generally not as high as in Western Europe — where the U.S. leader has an almost 80 percent unpopularity rating — but endorsements from the U.S. administration are far from a seal of victory.

According to a February survey by the Publicus Institute Hungary, 48 percent of respondents thought the Trump presidency would have a negative impact on Hungary, while 38 percent reckoned he would have a positive effect.

HUNGARY NATIONAL PARLIAMENT POLL OF POLLS

All 3 Years 2 Years 1 Year 6 Months Smooth Kalman

For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

Those sentiments were highly polarized along party lines, with some 85 percent of Fidesz voters taking a positive view of Trump’s impact and 76 percent of Tisza voters taking a negative view.

The only comfort Orbán could draw from the polling was that 39 percent of undecided voters thought Trump could have a positive effect, while only 34 percent thought the opposite.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also visited in February to try to reverse Orbán’s flagging fortunes, but his talk of a “golden age” in U.S.-Hungary relations seemed to fall flat. Indeed, independent opinion surveys following Rubio’s trip showed the center-right opposition actually widening its lead.

Timothy Ash from the Chatham House think tank said interventions by any personality short of Trump seemed to have little influence on the campaign.

“If you believe the independent opinion polls after the Rubio visit, they suggest that it didn’t move the dial,” Ash said. “I suppose there is a question what would happen if Trump turned up in Budapest. What would that do? If you talk to the opposition, they say that it probably would energize the Fidesz base and get wavering supporters to actually vote, and that could be pretty important. But don’t I think it would do much for many neutral voters.”

Nothing less than Trump will do

Orbán has held out hope that Trump himself could visit, and has spoken of an invitation several times. As Péter Krekó, executive director of independent policy research consultancy Political Capital, put it: “Anything less than Donald Trump will be insufficient to boost Orbán’s popularity.”

But a visit would have been a high-risk commitment for the president, especially if Orbán loses.

While Orbán is a major thorn in the side of the European Union — he is currently blocking the EU’s €90 billion loan for Ukraine — backing him overtly isn’t meant to send a message to the rest of Europe, the White House official said.

The official insisted the show of support was “much more simple than that” and played up the personal ties between the two men, adding Orbán shares “a lot of values with the president, and that relationship has been fruitful for them.”

“We need allies around the world that share our values over here and that have leaders who will want to work with us and have good relationships with us,” the official said. “That’s a key point we want to get across: that working with the U.S. and being close with the U.S. is a good thing.”