President Trump and Vice President JD Vance treated Hungary’s election like it was a U.S. Senate race in the United States. Vance flew to Budapest to campaign alongside Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. He even called Trump at one of Orbán’s rallies, and while on speakerphone, the American president told a crowd that Orbán had done “a fantastic job.” The president repeatedly urged Hungarians to back Orbán in his social posts.
But on Sunday, Orbán’s Fidesz Party lost resoundingly in the Hungarian elections, ending Orbán’s 16-year reign as prime minister. Opposition party Tisza is projected to win more than two-thirds of the 199 seats in Hungary’s Parliament. This is a huge victory for liberal and pro-democracy voices not only in Hungary but across the world. Orbán is an intellectual leader of the global far-right movement that has reshaped politics around the world over the last decade. He and his allies have come up with strategies to weaken the judiciary, the media, academia, and other independent sources of power in Hungary, which Trump and other leaders around the world have then implemented in their countries. It’s also another huge defeat for Trump. Candidates that Trump supports have been losing elections across the United States over the last year, Now his losing streak has crossed the Atlantic.
It’s important to emphasize that Hungary’s voters probably didn’t go to the polls thinking about Trump or the global fight for democracy. Fidesz lost for the normal reasons that political parties do. A corruption scandal, centered around a pardon issued by some of Orbán’s allies in 2023, created deep public frustration with the party. Hungary’s economy is struggling. Tisza and its leader, Péter Magyar—no one’s idea of a liberal crusader—ran a smart campaign that unified people who were tired of Orbán and Fidesz.
And while parties and leaders in other countries, particularly Canada, have successfully leaned into anti-Trump sentiment, that wasn’t the case in Hungary. Vance and Trump interjected themselves into the race because there was some chance it would help. After all, 53 percent of adults in Hungary said they had confidence in Trump doing the “right thing” regarding foreign affairs, in a Pew Research Center poll conducted last year. That number was significantly higher than in other European nations.
But even if this election wasn’t a referendum on democracy, far-right politics, or Trump, it’s still cause for celebration. Orbán wasn’t just an autocrat—he was inventing new methods of autocracy. He was a huge proponent of the anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism, anti–European Union, anti-liberal politics that has taken hold among conservatives in the United States and Europe. He was beloved by Trump and Vladimir Putin, perhaps the two most destructive world leaders of this century. It’s great this man is out of power.
And while Trump’s candidate in Hungary losing an election doesn’t do much for those of us in the U.S., it’s another indication that neither the U.S. nor the rest of the world is destined to adopt right-wing authoritarianism. We are far from the dark days of 2024, when far-right parties made huge gains in the European Parliament elections and Trump was elected in the United States a few months later. Now Trump is deeply unpopular. Republican candidates are losing or underperforming everywhere. Far-right politicians in Italy, France, and Germany are increasingly keeping their distance from the American president, aware that their publics hate him. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is getting international acclaim for bashing Trump.
Let me not overstate my case. It is not clear how committed Tisza and Magyar are to reestablishing democratic norms in Hungary. Orbán (or Fidez with a new leader), could regain power, as Trump did after his 2020 defeat. Far-right parties could still win elections in Britain and France in the next few years, giving Trump-style politics an even bigger beachhead in Europe than controlling Hungary. And Trump’s growing unpopularity at home and abroad didn’t stop him from going to war in Iran and further destabilizing the Middle East. The American presidency is a hugely powerful job, and Trump still has almost three years to wreak havoc from the Oval Office. All that said, we can still appreciate this moment. The vice president of the United States made the virtually unprecedented move of flying to another country on the eve of its election to explicitly campaign for a particular candidate. That candidate lost, badly. Embarrassing. Humiliating. Couldn’t have happened to someone (Vance) more deserving of shame and ridicule. From California to Wisconsin to Canada to Hungary, being Donald Trump’s candidate these days is a path to defeat. Scholars describe Hungary and increasingly the U.S. as “electoral autocracies.” That second word matters. But so does the first. Elections are proving to be a critical check on aspiring autocrats around the world. Good riddance, Viktor Orbán—and may his friend JD get the same treatment in 2028.
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