Updated April 17, 2026 at 5:00 AM CDT
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was seen for years as a master of tilting the electoral playing field in his favor to remain in power. On Sunday, his carefully-crafted strategy finally failed.
His opponent, Péter Magyar - a former Orbán loyalist - ran a campaign focused on Hungary's economic problems, government corruption and getting rid of the prime minister himself. The record turnout overwhelmed the measures Orbán had taken over the years to preserve power.
Hungarian American experts here in the U.S. say Orbán's loss has lessons for President Trump, and about the resilience of democracy.
"You can rewrite the constitution, you can capture public media, you can gerrymander election districts, but as long as people still enjoy the freedom to vote and to vote for whomever they want to, these systems can be reversed under the right circumstances," said David Koranyi who runs Action for Democracy, a U.S.-based civil society organization.
The case of Hungary is relevant because many political scientists say Trump has adopted a version of Orbán's competitive authoritarian playbook.
The president has sued news organizations, and the Federal Communications Commission has threatened to pull licenses from broadcasters the president has said are biased against him.
Trump has also suggested the federal government take over the running of elections in 15 states and has used the Justice Department to target his perceived political enemies.
Orbán's defeat shows the limits of these sorts of tactics, especially when wielded by an unpopular leader.
"Fundamentally in a democracy, you can't have the majority of people against you for too long before you lose power," said Lorinc Redei, who teaches politics at the University of Texas at Austin.
Orbán's loss also suggests opportunities for Democrats heading into the midterms and Republicans thinking about a presidential run in 2028, experts say. Like Orbán, President Trump is vulnerable on the economy, which he pledged to fix. An NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll earlier this year found nearly 6 in 10 people disapproved of Trump's handling of the economy – normally a strength for the president.
Magyar, a former member of Orbán's Fidesz party, led the opposition in Hungary and built a broad coalition. Magyar cut a patriotic profile, traveling the country in a pickup truck with a color scheme that matched the Hungarian flag.
"Everywhere he went, he emphasized that national identity and patriotism do not belong to the right wing," said Julia Sonnevend, a professor of sociology and communications at the New School in New York.
Sonnevend said Magyar also steered clear of divisive social issues. When Orbán tried to ban last year's Pride parade in Budapest, Magyar chose not to march and kept his coalition together.
"Magyar really managed to unite the entire opposition to Orbán under his flag and I think that carries lessons for Democrats . . . that you need to create a very, very broad tent," said Redei, the politics professor.
Magyar also benefitted from his profile as an insider and member of Orbán's right-wing party, who saw the light and quit. Magyar publicly broke with Orbán's government two years ago. Magyar was furious after his ex-wife, the justice minister, took the fall for a scandal involving the pardon of a child sex abuser.
Koranyi says members of the Trump administration who want to succeed him could try to distance themselves from the president in advance of a 2028 presidential run. But choosing when to break with a powerful leader is tricky.
"It's hard to know ahead of time when that window of opportunity is going to close," said Redei. "The higher up you are in a party, the earlier it closes."
Some conservative political watchers in the U.S., however, said people are reading too much into Orbán's loss. The United States is a vast, ethnically diverse nation of about 340 million people, while Hungary has a population of less than 10 million and is about the size of Indiana.
Matt Schlapp, who leads the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), pointed out that Orbán, 62, was running for a fifth term, and that no politician can win forever.
"When you've been in power 16 years, as Victor Orbán has, longer than FDR . . . it was probably asking a little too much to buck that much history," said Schlapp, whose organization has held annual conferences in Hungary.
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, noted that a win for Magyar – who favors strict immigration and conservative social values - is no victory for the left. But Gonzalez added that Orbán's defeat has lessons for President Trump.
"Keep the promises you've made," said Gonzalez. "Above all, don't get complacent."
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