After four terms spanning 16 years the authoritarian prime minister of Hungary, Victor Orbán was democratically defeated on Sunday. The right-wing populist leader was ousted five days after vice president JD Vance traveled to Budapest to campaign on his behalf, highly uncharacteristic for American leaders. Orbán’s extended reign was characterized by hardline stances against immigration and those who identified as LGBTQ+ —especially transgender individuals— restricting freedoms of both the press and academic bodies as well as eroding democratic rule of law, undermining the authority of anti-corruption agencies and weakening the independence of Hungary’s judiciary.

Notably, his administration served as an inspiration behind both the MAGA movement in America, as well as Trump’s presidential campaigns who has modeled much of his governance on the Hungarian leader including his immigration crackdown and the firing of career civil servants. Orbán was seen as a European ally by Trump, and a sort of testing ground for some of his more extreme aims laid out by Project 2025. Even the Libertarian thinktank, The Cato Institute, recognized the devastating blow this defeat was to the narrative of a populist  and nationalistic right movement. Steve Bannon, a White House counselor in Trump’s first term also identified this as a “warning flair for November”. 

Orbán’s defeat is especially notable as he was voted out by the single largest majority ever in a democratic Hungarian election. A poll taken shortly before the election suggested that 65% of voters under 30 would be not be choosing Orbán, this generational shift is almost certainly due to not only the social immobility for young people in Hungary, but also due to most first time voters only ever having lived in a country ruled by this authoritarian. This extreme discontent is reflected in the more than two-thirds majority held in parliament by Péter Magyar and the Tisza party, now holding 138 of the 199 seats. This supermajority will allow for the amending of Hungary’s constitution, which is seen as a crucial step towards effective governance and remedying some of the harms caused by Orbán.