Hungary: JD Vance arrives in Budapest to back Orbán’s re-election bid
hungary was thrust into the spotlight on Tuesday as US Vice-President JD Vance arrived in Budapest to support veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary election. Vance and his wife Usha were greeted at Budapest airport by Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó, while officials prepared for a press conference and a rally later in the day. The visit comes as Orbán faces what is being described as his toughest political challenge in decades.
Pressure builds before Sunday vote
The trip places Hungary at the center of a sharpened political test for Orbán, who has won four elections in a row since 2010. On Sunday, he will face Péter Magyar, a former insider in the prime minister’s Fidesz party who later founded the centre-right Tisza party.
Polls in Hungary show Tisza leading Fidesz by between 10% and 20% in most surveys, while the strongly pro-government Nézőpont agency places Fidesz narrowly ahead. Orbán is hoping Vance’s visit will help persuade undecided voters to stand with him again as a strong and internationally respected leader in uncertain times.
Vance told reporters before leaving Washington that he was looking forward to seeing his “good friend Viktor” and discussing issues tied to the US-Hungary relationship. Officials in Budapest have framed the two-day trip as the first top-level US visit since former President George Bush in 2006, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Orbán in Budapest in February.
Signals from Washington and Budapest
The Hungary visit follows a series of public signals linking Orbán to Donald Trump’s political circle. Last month, Trump said Orbán had his “complete and total support” in a video message to a conservative political gathering in Budapest. Szijjártó said Orbán’s friendship with Trump had created a “new golden age” in relations.
Vance’s stop in Hungary also reflects the close ties Orbán has built with the MAGA movement. Their relationship dates back to 2016, when Orbán was the first and only EU leader to back Trump in the US presidential election. Orbán later strongly supported Trump’s re-election in 2024 and visited Washington in October to secure an exemption for Hungary from US sanctions on Russian oil giants Rosneft and Lukoil.
Trump later said the exemption was a personal deal between himself and Orbán, adding an extra layer of pressure around the election outcome in Hungary. That dynamic gives Vance’s appearance in Budapest a direct political edge, even as it is wrapped in the language of diplomacy.
Energy strain and election stakes
The backdrop to Hungary’s election also includes energy pressure. Hungary has defied calls from Brussels to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels and relies heavily on Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline and Russian gas through the TurkStream pipeline.
No oil has reached Hungary through Druzhba since the end of January, after a Russian attack on oil infrastructure in western Ukraine on 27 January. Orbán blames Ukraine for failing to restore the pipeline, and Hungary has been forced to release fuel reserves and bring in non-Russian oil through a pipeline from Croatia. There has been no visible diplomatic support from the Trump administration on the pipeline issue.
For Orbán, the political stakes in Hungary are now intertwined with a broader international message: a show of support from Washington, a closely fought campaign at home, and a vote on Sunday that could reshape his long run in power. As Vance meets Orbán in Budapest, the outcome in Hungary will determine how much weight that support carries after the ballots are counted.
