Peter Magyar, chairman of the Tisza party, looks into the camera during his response to a press conference in Budapest. The Magyars – the biggest opponents of Viktor Orbán and Fidesz – went to a polling station (Hégyvidéky Másever Ovoda) to vote and then held a press conference for Hungarian and international media in Budapest.
Sopa Images | LightRocket | getty images
Hungary’s opposition Tisza party is likely to win Sunday’s national election, handing a historic defeat to Russia’s nationalist ally, veteran Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is also backed by US President Donald Trump, two polls have shown.
Polls taken before voting began and published after polling stations closed on Sunday showed Peter Magyar’s upstart centre-right Tisza party leading Orban’s nationalist Fidesz party by 55%-57% support.
Some of these last-minute surveys, conducted before the election but published only after polling has closed, have proven accurate in the past. There are no exit polls for Sunday’s election.
If confirmed by official results on Sunday, it would mark the end of Orban’s 16-year rule and – most likely – Hungary’s adversarial role inside the EU, opening the way for a 90 billion euro ($105 billion) EU loan to war-torn Ukraine that the veteran prime minister had blocked.
It would deprive Russian President Vladimir Putin of his main ally in the EU and shock right-wing circles across the West, including Trump’s White House.
In Hungary, Orbán’s defeat could open the way to reforms that Tisza says would aim to rein in corruption and end the democratic decline that the EU has long accused Orbán of overseeing.
However, the extent of such reforms will depend on whether Tisza can secure the two-thirds constitutional majority needed to overturn most of Orbán’s legacy.
Orbán, a Eurosceptic, laid out a model of “illiberal democracy” seen as a blueprint by Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and its admirers in Europe.
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – APRIL 12: People arrive to vote at a polling station during the Hungarian parliamentary election on April 12, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo by Janos Kummer/Getty Images)
Janos Kummer Getty Images News | getty images
But many Hungarians are tired of Orban, 62, after three years of economic stagnation and rising costs of living, as well as reports of oligarchs close to the government amassing more wealth.
The Magyars, leaders of the Tisza, appear to have successfully taken advantage of this frustration.
Casting his vote for Tisza in the Hungarian capital, 27-year-old Mihaly Baksi said the country needed change.
“We need to improve the public mood; there is a lot of tension in many areas and the current government is only fueling these sentiments,” he said.
Another voter, who gave her name as Zsuzsa, said she wanted continuity.
“I would really like it if all the results achieved in recent years were maintained – and I am very afraid of war,” she said, referring to the ongoing conflict in Hungary’s eastern neighbor Ukraine.
Orban sought to frame Sunday’s election as a choice between “war and peace”. During the election campaign, the government plastered signs throughout the country warning that Magyar would drag Hungary into Russia’s war with Ukraine, which it strongly denies.
