Ending his 16-year grip on power in Hungary, former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his far-right Fidesz Party were swept out of office in the national election held over the April 10 weekend. His rival, Peter Magyar and the conservative Tisza Party, received a supermajority after securing 138 of 199 seats in parliament with 53.6 percent of the vote.
In a time when the far right is gaining political power in parts of Europe, Orbán’s ouster has been a massive setback for the movement as the people of Hungary overwhelmingly demanded change. While the Trump administration has, at the time of this writing, abstained from commenting on the defeat—Trump walked away from a group of reporters peppering him with questions about the election—Fidesz’s sweeping loss has resulted in an outpouring of outrage and fear from Orbán’s international supporters across the far right.
Removal of an Autocrat
Orbán’s defeat has removed a longtime fixture of the global far right, who has used his position as Hungary’s head of government to enact policies that have significantly weakened the country’s democracy and press freedom. In their first two years after taking power in 2010, Orbán and Fidesz immediately changed Hungary’s Constitution to significantly reduce checks and balances and forced hundreds of judges into retirement, significantly impacting judicial independence.
Legal changes also vastly favored large political parties and changed voting districts to the benefit of Fidesz. Parts of the legislation were later struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2012.
In more recent moves, Orbán has been a strong proponent of “family values,” anti-abortion, and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies within Hungary, while using Hungarian-based and funded NGOs to promote the same rhetoric abroad.
Fidesz established a network of think tanks and educational institutions, including the Danube Institute, the Center for Fundamental Rights, the Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), and the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs. This network supported Fidesz’s policymaking, countered their political opponents in Brussels, provided well-paid positions for international allies, and promoted alliances with far-right organizations across Europe, the United States, and Latin America.
Under Orbán, Hungary has also become a major host of conferences and meetings of the international far right. These conferences include the 2019 MCC Budapest Summit on Migration. MCC is also a partner in the establishment of the Migration Research Institute (Migrációkutató Intézet, MRI), an anti-immigrant “think tank.”
Similarly, the Budapest-based Danube Institute and MCC hosted a series of “Patriotic Talks” in 2020. The Danube Institute was formed as part of the propaganda arm of the Orbán regime abroad, aimed at providing the administration with an intellectual veneer to win conservative converts in the West. The “Patriot Talks” brought Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, which has produced far-right propaganda for American schools, as a speaker in Hungary in 2022. Other speakers included Douglas Murray, an outspoken opponent of Islam whose work arguing that Muslims pose a cultural threat to Europe has been repeatedly cited by anti-immigrant hardliners like Orbán. Another speaker was David Brog, founder of the Edmund Burke Foundation, an organizer of far-right political conferences.
The largest such event was undoubtedly the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Hungary, which began in 2022 and held its most recent event in Budapest in March 2026. Trump appeared at CPAC Hungary via video message offering support in 2025. Other figures who have appeared include Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL), and Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who also appeared at a conference hosted by white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Other notable speakers from the American far right have included Charlie Kirk, Dave Rubin, and Ben Shapiro.
Fidesz has also repeatedly targeted the LGBTQ+ community. A 2021 law passed in Hungary sought to ban any pro-LGBTQ+ education in schools and content that portrayed or promoted “gender identities that do not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, sex change, or homosexuality” to children.
The legislation was challenged in the E.U., eventually reaching the body’s highest court. No determination has been made, but Tamara Ćapeta, advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, said in an opinion published in 2025 that the policy violates E.U. law.
In 2025, Fidesz amended its laws to ban gatherings in support of LGBTQ+ rights. The move resulted in an outpouring of support for the Budapest Pride Parade in 2025, which saw over 100,000 people march through the streets of the capital in defiance of the ban, including the city’s mayor.
Reaction to the Election
Among the European far right, Orbán has long been seen as a hero who stood as a bulwark against the forces of a globalist, dictatorial and overbearing European Union. His anti-LGBTQ+, anti-woman, natalist, anti-immigration, anti-abortion policies inside of Hungary, and support for far-right movements abroad, cast him as a holdout against the forces of multiculturalism and modernity.
The reaction from some of his most ardent supporters has been swift.
De facto leader of the Identitarian movement and point person for the racist “remigration” movement, Austrian white supremacist Martin Sellner dedicated multiple posts on the social media platform X to analyzing Orbán’s loss, including lamenting on April 12 that the constitution could be rewritten to “turn Hungary into a left-liberal model state.” Sellner has continued to focus on the election, including suggesting in another X post that the newly elected Magyar will “systematically dismantle the right-wing media apparatus, purge the state of Orbán loyalists, and remove the conservative intellectuals Orbán built up.”
Italian anti-immigrant activist Andrea Ballarati, an Identitarian and supporter of the “remigration” concept, in which people of immigrant background would be forcibly removed from European nations, said the election result was “worse than expected” and “it was nice to visit Budapest before the impending invasion,” in an April 12 post to X.
From Budapest, Rod Dreher, an American right-wing blogger and director of the Danube Institute’s Network Project, acknowledged in an op-ed that the electoral result “might actually have hurt Vance’s image.” Dreher, who is a friend of Vice President JD Vance, was referring to the strong backing given by the Trump administration to the Fidesz leader. Vice President JD Vance visited Hungary in the final week of the campaign and took part in an Orbán campaign rally. Given the outcome, it now seems unlikely that their European far right allies will want MAGA involvement in future campaigns.
At the Orbán-aligned MCC headquarters in Brussels, a swift analysis of the results pointed to the “influence of the globalist outlook” as a central concern. In a statement, the group added that “the considerable resources of the European Commission, such as its army of funded NGOs, push this ideology day and night. Defeating this is key to the success of any populist candidate.”
In contrast, the other organizations in this network have remained silent on social media on the first day of the post-Orbán era.
American Allies Aghast
Similar to Europe, the American fringe and mainstream far right has long seen Orbán as an ally. The Trump administration massively supported the former prime minister. While the White House has not commented on the election result, numerous members of the U.S. far right have weighed in.
In a response to an article by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell on the election, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said on X that the McConnell was “celebrat[ing] Hungary becoming a vassal state of the E.U.,” adding that there was a “lot of swamp left to be drained.”
The official X account for the anti-LGBTQ+ Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) warned on April 13 that “a tsunami of wokeness” was about to hit Hungary. C-Fam has previously advocated for anti-LGBTQ policies at the U.N. and supported “traditional” marriage between a man and a woman in Hungary.
Trump media ally and racist conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer added to the chorus of fearmongering around immigration by claiming that Hungary was about to be “conquered by Muslims.”
While these has been no shortage of support from U.S. based figures, the silence from the administration signals what a setback the loss of a longtime political bedfellow like Orbán has been for Trump and the global far right. The MAGA political brand, now embroiled in an unpopular war with Iran and suffering under the weight of repeated scandals and missteps, has proven itself unappealing to European voters who previously supported Orbán.
Silence from Orbán’s Allies in Latin America
In Latin America, Orbán’s allies have also kept quiet. Twenty-four hours after the outgoing Hungarian prime minister acknowledged the result, neither Chile’s José Antonio Kast, Argentina’s Javier Milei, nor Paraguay’s Santiago Peña had posted on social media about the election result.
Milei traveled to Budapest just weeks ago to attend CPAC Hungary, held on March 21, becoming the first Argentine president to visit the country. From the stage, he spoke of a “personal bond and a sense of mutual admiration” for Orbán. Yet, he has not commented publicly on his ally’s defeat on X, where he is highly active.
The message instead came from his foreign minister, Pablo Quirno, who praised Orbán and wished him success as opposition leader.
In Their Own Words
American Far Right
“Donald Trump and J.D. Vance placed a heavy bet on Orbán, with the vice president coming over for a rally with Orbán in the campaign’s final week. It didn’t help, and might actually have hurt Vance’s image.”
—Rod Dreher, an American right-wing blogger and director of the Danube Institute’s Network Project.
The Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts commenting on an article supporting Orbán’s loss by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell.
American anti-LGBTQ+ Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) has advocated for anti-LGBTQ policies at the U.N. and supported “traditional” marriage between a man and a woman in Hungary.
Trump ally and far-right media commentator Laura Loomer.
European Far-Right
“They might even rewrite Orbán’s Easter Constitution—and turn Hungary into a left-liberal model state.
“While Magyar assimilates Hungary into the E.U., the country will likely be showered with funds and granted a grace period for implementing asylum seeker redistribution, hate speech censorship, and gender indoctrination—so that no unrest arises in the country. What was the reason for this?”
—Austrian white supremacist leader Martin Sellner commenting about the loss and his fears under the new Hungarian parliament on April 12, 2026.
Italian anti-immigration activist Andrea Ballarati, an Identitarian and supporter of the racist concept of “remigration.”
Portugese leader of the far-right anti-immigrant group Reconquista Afonso Gonçalves.
“The Patriots Group as well expresses their concerns about interference from the European Commission in national political processes, as such developments risk undermining trust in European institutions and the integrity of democratic decision-making.”
—Orbán’s group in the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe, issued a statement on April 13, 2026.
“E.U. elites should also be wary of celebrating too soon. Whilst Orbán may have been defeated, the wider mood of the continent is unchanged. The populist revolution is still very much ongoing. The push back against the E.U. elite’s addiction to uncontrolled migration, its disastrous energy and environmental policies, and its culture war against the values of European civilisation is still well underway.”
—The Orbán-aligned MCC headquarters in Brussels published an analysis of the results pointing to the “influence of the globalist outlook” as a central concern on April 13, 2026.
Jordan Bardella, president of France’s far-right political party National Rally.
Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), commenting on the Hungarian election result.
