On the eve of Hungary’s most consequential national election in a generation, the country’s two leading political forces are pushing their campaigns to the final 24-hour stretch, as challenger Péter Magyar mounts a historic bid to unseat Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party, which has held uninterrupted power for 16 years.
Addressing thousands of energized supporters ahead of voting, Magyar declared his movement was on the cusp of securing a two-thirds parliamentary majority, urging his base to put in a final push before heading into the voting booths. Following his speech, the opposition leader worked the crowd, posing for selfies with voters in a display of grassroots connection that has become a hallmark of his campaign. His final campaign stop will be in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city located in the country’s northeast, while Orbán—who trails Magyar in most independent opinion polls—will close out his campaign with a major rally in the capital, Budapest.
The momentum of the anti-Fidesz movement was on full display Friday night, when tens of thousands of Hungarians packed Budapest’s Heroes’ Square and the adjacent streets for a united anti-incumbent concert, one of the largest public opposition gatherings in the country in decades. For first-time voter Fanni, who traveled two hours from her southern village to attend the event with her mother, the election represents a once-in-a-generation opening for change. “I don’t think I’d support Magyar in an ideal world, but this is our only shot to turn things around,” she said, adding that she could feel a palpable shift across the country.
Orbán’s greatest vulnerability heading into the vote is the broad, cross-sectional public anger that has coalesced around Magyar’s opposition movement. A former Fidesz insider who broke with the party over its corruption and authoritarian turn, Magyar has built his new grassroots political party, Tisza, into a unifying force for disparate anti-Orbán groups across the political spectrum.
The incumbent prime minister has received high-profile backing from prominent American conservative figures in the final days of the campaign: U.S. Vice President JD Vance completed a two-day campaign swing in support of Fidesz, and former President Donald Trump pledged late Friday that he would leverage “the full economic might of the United States to strengthen Hungary’s economy” if Orbán secures another term.
Though Hungary is a small landlocked Central European nation with just 9.6 million residents, Orbán has positioned himself as a pivotal global player over his tenure. A close ally of both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, he has emerged as a leading disruptive force within the European Union, consistently blocking Brussels’ policy initiatives on Ukraine and alienating his EU allies while maintaining close economic and political ties to the Kremlin.
While pro-Fidesz pollsters still argue the incumbent holds a narrow edge—pointing to the large share of undecided “shy Fidesz voters” who do not share their voting intentions with pollsters—Orbán’s campaign has lacked the energy and momentum that has defined Magyar’s challenge. Orbán’s core message to voters has been a warning that the opposition could eliminate all the economic and political progress his government has built over 16 years, and he has called for national unity amid global uncertainty. His strategy of framing the EU and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the primary threats to Hungarian sovereignty has failed to close the gap: most independent polls show Magyar holding a steady 10-point lead over Fidesz.
Magyar, a centre-right conservative who spent years in senior roles within Fidesz before breaking away, has run a grueling national campaign, delivering as many as seven public speeches a day across villages, towns and cities across the country. Speaking to supporters in the small northwestern town of Mosonmagyaróvár, he framed the election as a historic opportunity for regime change to reverse Orbán’s authoritarian turn.
Tisza’s coalition has drawn support from across the ideological spectrum, but its greatest strength is among young Hungarians, many of whom have never known any government other than Fidesz. “Right now, there’s no future for young people in this country,” said Laura, a first-time voter who attended a Magyar rally with her friend Napsugár.
Political analyst Zsuzsanna Végh, a researcher with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, confirmed that a clear generational shift is underway: opinion polls put Fidesz’s support among voters aged 18 to 29 at less than 10 percent. She also noted that the opposition has made significant inroads in small towns and even rural villages, long considered Fidesz strongholds. “While large rally crowds don’t guarantee election outcomes, the scale of engagement and mobilization that Magyar has achieved is unprecedented in Hungary,” Végh said.
A Magyar victory would end 16 years of Orbán rule and roll back many of the incumbent’s controversial policies, but to dismantle the pro-Fidesz institutional infrastructure that has been built in the judiciary and state bodies over the past 16 years, Magyar needs to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority. That will require flipping control of many long-held Fidesz municipal seats, including in Székesfehérvár, Hungary’s medieval “city of kings” located an hour south of Budapest. Orbán visited the city on Friday, reminding supporters that it has long been a safe Fidesz seat; losing the city would be a major humiliation for the party.
One local stallholder in Székesfehérvár’s covered market estimated that 90 percent of local residents still back Fidesz. For Agota, a retired pensioner, the opposition’s pro-EU and pro-Ukraine stance poses a clear risk to Hungary. “I’m genuinely afraid they will drag Hungary into the war,” she said.
Anti-EU and anti-Ukraine rhetoric has been the centerpiece of Orbán’s campaign, repeated nonstop on pro-Fidesz television networks and news websites, and featured on campaign posters that pair Zelensky and Magyar under the slogan “They are dangerous!”
But György Wáberer, one of Hungary’s wealthiest businessmen, has accused Fidesz of deliberate fear-mongering over the EU and Ukraine to distract from its corruption and close alignment with the Kremlin. “April 12 is a fateful date: you will decide whether Hungary belongs to Europe or to Russia,” Wáberer said, drawing a fierce rebuke from a senior Orbán administration official who labeled Wáberer a traitor who sold out his country.
Notably, Magyar has allowed Russian state propaganda television crews to cover his rallies, telling them they are witnessing authentic regime change in action, while his supporters have repeatedly chanted “Russians go home” — a clear reflection of growing public frustration with Orbán’s close ties to Putin. The same chant has even broken out at Orbán rallies, where protesters have disrupted the prime minister’s speeches.
Orbán’s alignment with Putin has delivered cheap Russian fuel to Hungarian consumers throughout the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but the chant “Russians go home” carries deep historical resonance in Hungary, dating back to the 1956 revolution against Soviet occupation.
Even in loyal Fidesz territory like Székesfehérvár, opinions are deeply divided. At a local flower stall, 73-year-old Eva said she believes it is long past time for a change, while her daughter-in-law Andrea argues that Magyar is arrogant and dismissive of the progress Fidesz has delivered. “Fidesz has to go, they have stolen so much and the country is dying,” Eva said. Andrea pushed back, noting that Fidesz has renovated six local schools and built new hospital facilities in the city. Eva countered that much of the public funding for those projects was siphoned off by corrupt insiders close to Orbán.
Widespread allegations of corruption and cronyism have pushed millions of former Fidesz voters away from the ruling party at both the local and national level. Over 16 years in power, big public infrastructure contracts have consistently been awarded to members of Orbán’s inner circle, while independent media outlets have been systematically bought up by allies of the prime minister. After nearly two decades in uninterrupted control, Fidesz may finally be facing its moment of reckoning at the ballot box.