The United States has dispatched its vice president to campaign for a foreign autocrat who is losing his own election. On Tuesday, JD Vance arrived in Budapest for a joint press conference and campaign rally alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, five days before parliamentary elections that could end the strongman’s 16-year grip on power.

Vance will appear with Orbán at a football stadium rally — a remarkable breach of the longstanding US tradition against involvement in foreign elections. Secretary of State Marco Rubio previewed the approach in February, telling Orbán in Budapest: “President Trump is deeply committed to your success, because your success is our success.”

The brazenness is the point. Orbán has been the global far-right’s patron saint — the leader who proved democratic institutions can be dismantled from within while the formal architecture of elections remains. He has taken control of Hungary’s courts, media, and universities, transforming the country into what he proudly calls an “illiberal democracy.” Hungary now ranks as the most corrupt nation in the 27-member EU.

And he is losing. Most polls put opposition candidate Péter Magyar and his centre-right Tisza party ahead of Orbán’s Fidesz by 10 to 20 points, according to BBC reporting. Magyar, a former Fidesz insider who broke with Orbán two years ago, slammed Vance’s visit as election meddling. “No foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections,” he wrote on X. “This is our country.”

Orbán’s campaign has been further rocked by leaked transcripts of Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó’s calls with Russian officials, suggesting Budapest relayed confidential EU summit discussions to Moscow and lobbied to remove Russians from sanctions lists at the Kremlin’s bidding, according to the BBC.

If Orbán falls, the leader who inspired Trump’s MAGA movement, France’s Marine Le Pen, and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders would be repudicated by his own electorate. Washington is betting heavily that he won’t be.

Sources