An opposition member of parliament had an unusual experience in March this year. Before one of the committee meetings held in the Parliament, he struck up a conversation with a Fidesz representative with whom he had previously only discussed policy issues.

This time, however, the government MP began to complain to him that, in his opinion, there were problems in the country, various political issues were not being resolved, and the government was not doing a good job.

“He was referring to social issues and livelihood issues,” recalled the opposition representative, who said that the Fidesz politician spoke in an agitated manner, characterized by “outbursts” and a “snap, defensive” style.

The government MP also explained in detail what problems he sees within his own political camp. He complained that, contrary to the government’s promises, the Hungarian economy remains in poor shape, causing more people to face livelihood problems. This significantly reduces the chances of pro-government representatives being re-elected.

Turning to his own constituency, he said that a billion-dollar investment project there is enriching pro-government business circles to a greater extent than was previously the case. The MP also pointed out that the enrichment of pro-government entrepreneurs could backfire on him, and that voters could punish him for it.

The Fidesz representative also revealed that he had previously shared these concerns with one of the ministers. During their meeting, the government official acknowledged that these were indeed real problems but added reassuringly that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would resolve them. The Fidesz politician told his opposition counterpart with disappointment that a long time had passed since that meeting, and nothing had changed.

This conversation clearly showed the uncertainty that characterized the ruling party in the first half of the year. This was also felt by those close to the prime minister, who have been making serious efforts over the past six months to reverse the unfavorable developments for the party.

In recent months, we have reconstructed the events within the party during this period by talking to a dozen sources with insight into the workings of the government. Due to the sensitivity of the topic, sources who requested anonymity revealed that Fidesz’s crisis was deeper than it had appeared until then. Since previous smear campaigns against Péter Magyar had been unsuccessful, by spring the ruling party had come to believe that it was impossible to find Tisza leader’s weak point. Some Fidesz politicians explained this by saying that they saw themselves in Magyar, a former Fidesz supporter, as young and uncorrupted, and were unprepared to face such an opponent.

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Meanwhile, many influential government figures and certain initiatives have also been criticized within the party. For example, a high-ranking politician referred to the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty as a “clown office.” The reputation of Minister of National Economy Márton Nagy has also been tarnished, with even Fidesz circles joking about his predictions, which almost never come true. Many also consider the anti-Ukrainian campaign, which the government has pushed in several waves, to be weak, because, according to Fidesz politicians, it does not resonate with the people as strongly as the earlier messages on migration or peace.

Although Orbán himself has made mistakes that have unsettled his own camp, many within the party still believe that the prime minister will succeed in leading Fidesz to victory again. For the time being, Orbán has come up with a solution that involves changing his previous communication techniques and restructuring his campaign team. The latter essentially meant that he became in charge of the campaign.

Chapter I: The trap

Orbán at his annual state-of-the-nation address on February 22 this year

On February 18 this year, serious security measures were in place around one of Balatonfüred’s hotels, the four-star Hotel Füred near lake Balaton. Police officers and security guards ensured that no unauthorized persons could get close to the building, which was cordoned off. There was even a drone flying over the area.

The precautions were taken because Fidesz held its parliamentary session opening meeting here, attended by the party’s members of parliament and key government officials. It has become a tradition for the government to hold these meetings in rural locations, but this occasion was special. For the first time in its fifteen years of unchallenged rule, Fidesz was forced to face the fact that it has a serious challenger, while its support has been shaken.

Although Fidesz won the June 2024 EP elections by a significant margin over Tisza, which was still a newcomer to politics at the time, several opinion polls indicate that the balance of power had shifted by the fall of 2024. For example, in November last year, the polling company Medián measured that among certain party voters, Tisza stood at 46 percent and Fidesz at 39 percent.

Given these developments, everyone in the party was waiting to see how Viktor Orbán would respond to the situation. As usual, the prime minister came up with a combative plan.

In a closed-door speech on February 18, Orbán announced that he was preparing for a serious conflict. He explained that this opportunity had opened up for him because, a few weeks earlier, his close ally Donald Trump had once again taken office as president of the United States. Orbán believed that this had changed the international environment, allowing him to finally crack down on civil society organizations and media outlets that were causing him political problems.

According to one participant, the prime minister presented this as a measure to protect sovereignty, in line with the government’s previous communications. He said that organizations receiving foreign support pose a threat to the country’s sovereignty. “In such cases, there are always expectations on the part of the financier. He who pays the piper calls the tune” –Orbán said, according to one participant.

The MPs and government officials were then informed that Orbán was considering drafting legislation that would make these organizations impossible. According to one participant in the faction meeting, the representatives did not respond substantively to Orbán’s remarks, but merely “digested” what had been said.

The importance of the topic was indicated by the fact that it was also discussed on February 19, the day after the two-day faction meeting. At that time, Ágoston Mráz, head of the pro-government Nézőpont Institute, gave a presentation to the MPs on the various channels through which money from abroad reaches the organizations in question.

This is how Fidesz prepared the campaign, in the first phase of which Viktor Orbán compared journalists and civil activists to bugs that needed to be eliminated, and in a later phase, a bill was introduced that was called “transparency” but was aimed at making independent editorial offices and civil organizations critical of the government impossible to operate.

Although Fidesz publicly targeted these social actors, in reality this was an attempt to take back the initiative from the increasingly powerful Tisza Party.

Even then, Péter Magyar, the leader of the opposition party, was not taken seriously by Fidesz. According to a political advisor with government connections, the ruling party “deeply despised Magyar.” They thought he was a “buffoon” who would sooner or later “lose his head,” that is, make a serious mistake that would destroy his political project.

Confident of this, the government tried to trap Magyar. Antal Rogán, the minister responsible for government communications, played a key role in preparing it.

According to a source familiar with the process, Rogán’s staff began thinking early this year about what “ideologically divisive” issues the government could raise that would “annoy liberal voters.” The goal was to involve Magyar in the ensuing social debates about these topics, which would be covered by the Hungarian media. They thought that if they could get Magyar on the same platform as liberal voters, they could accuse him of being part of George Soros’s network, which the government had long treated as an enemy. According to the source, Rogán and his team calculated that it would be a positive development for them even if just attention were diverted from Magyar and the press focused on the topics they brought up.

Rogán’s team considered several different topics. According to one government source, these included the death penalty for pedophiles. However, this more drastic proposal was quickly rejected, as the death penalty is prohibited in the EU, and the government would have been unable to push this issue through legally. (The fact that János Lázár, Minister of Construction and Transport, raised this issue several times at public forums in the spring also indicates that it was being considered.)

Rogán and his colleagues, who also work with public opinion polling methods, ultimately chose three topics. These included the crackdown on civil society and newspapers already announced by the prime minister at the faction meeting, the banning of the Pride parade, and the fight against drug dealers.

Orbán announced the package of divisive issues and a few populist measures in his annual state-of-the country speech on February 22 this year. In the following weeks, the government explained the various measures in detail and submitted draft legislation on them.

Although Péter Magyar dismissed the issues as trivial and did not engage in the debates surrounding them, public life was thrown into turmoil. In the weeks that followed, the front pages of newspapers independent of the government were dominated by articles about the ban on Pride and the attacks on civil society and the press. The government thus succeeded to some extent in getting the public to talk about the issues it had raised, but this did not solve its problems.

Chapter II: Bad news instead of good

The Hungarian government is in session — Source: Márton Nagy’s Facebook page

The leaders of the EU member states discussed further defense support for Ukraine at their summit on March 6. After discussions that lasted into the night, Viktor Orbán told reporters that instead of providing further aid, the EU should strive to end the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible.

The prime minister then made a rather big logical leap to suggest that Ukraine’s future EU membership would also consume significant Hungarian resources. He therefore initiated an “indicative vote” on Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Since no such category exists in Hungarian law, Orbán quickly added that the vote would be conducted in a manner similar to national consultations. The Hungarian government has been using this signature collection campaign for years, in which questions are phrased in such a way as to produce results that are in line with the government’s position.

Although Orbán claimed that this latest consultation was about deciding on a matter of national importance, according to a source close to the government, the primary purpose of the announced campaign was to test the organizational efficiency of Fidesz. (Orbán has since essentially acknowledged in his speech in Kötcse, that the national consultations conducted by the government are in fact a means of mobilizing support for Fidesz.

As part of the organizational preparations, the Fidesz constituency (vk) presidents with whom the ruling party wanted to engage in the election campaign were selected in February this year. The vk presidents not only play a key role in conducting local campaigns, but they also tend to be Fidesz’s individual candidates for the parliamentary seats. According to a source close to the government, several Fidesz politicians were only provisionally granted candidacy in February. In order to appear on the ballot in the 2026 parliamentary elections, they first had to prove their competence.

One of the tools for this was the vote on Ukraine announced by the prime minister, called Voks2025. According to a source close to the government, the party headquarters wanted to use this to gauge Fidesz’s “mobilizing power” in each constituency. According to another source, a minimum number of signatures to be collected nationwide was also predetermined. Those party chairpersons who did not perform well in this regard could expect to be replaced.

Due to the mobilization involved in collecting signatures, Fidesz politicians began to talk more and more about Ukraine. Orbán himself, for example, posted that after Ukraine joined the EU, “Ukrainian criminal gangs” arriving in “huge cars” would flood the country. Alexandra Szentkirályi, president of Fidesz in Budapest, stood next to a man tied up in a car trunk and warned of Ukrainian organ traffickers. The Tisza Party was accused of colluding with Ukrainian secret services to undermine the government’s voting campaign.

These sometimes shocking statements were made because, according to government sources, they were trying to cover up the increasingly serious economic problems by stirring up the Ukrainian issue.

By spring, the Hungarian economic indicators were worse than the government had expected. While Minister of Economy Márton Nagy said at the end of last year that “we have hammered inflation into the ground,” food prices rose by 7 percent year-on-year in March this year. GDP in the first quarter of this year fell by 0.4 percent compared to the same period last year, making it clear that the 4 percent economic growth promised by Márton Nagy for this year would not be achievable.

Several members of the ruling party were unhappy that Márton Nagy’s predictions had consistently failed to come true. According to a government source, one Fidesz politician, speaking in a small circle, sarcastically referred to the minister as the “government’s fortune teller.”

These figures were particularly embarrassing for the government because at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, they were still talking about the economy taking off. They were so confident about economic growth that they even launched a communication campaign called “good news,” during which they announced what they considered to be positive economic results one after another. However, due to the deteriorating economic data, this campaign quickly lost credibility, so the government abandoned it.

According to government sources, however, they were also aware internally that the anti-Ukrainian campaign was not really successful in covering up these problems. “They are trying to build this up, but this issue is weaker than ever before. There is no connection to it, no sign that it could work,” said one source, referring to the fact that Ukraine’s accession to the EU has no impact on the daily lives of voters.

“The problem is that Fidesz cannot find that 80-20 issue that would get 80 percent of voters behind it and push the opposition to the remaining 20 percent. This used to be the case with migration and, after the outbreak of war, with peace,” the source added, referring to the 2015 migrant crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war that broke out in early 2022.

However, the anti-Ukrainian campaign served its technical purpose. A few weeks after the vote, Telex wrote that, according to their calculations, Fidesz would be running different candidates in at least a third of its constituencies in the 2026 elections than it did four years earlier. The replaced candidates presumably did not perform well in this mobilization test, among other things.

Although the campaign was useful from this point of view, Fidesz’s support still lagged behind that of Tisza.

Chapter III: The young face of Fidesz

Péter Magyar and Viktor Orbán shaking hands in the European Parliament – Source: EP

Over the past year, the mood at events in one of Pest County’s Fidesz constituencies has changed. Whereas previously, Fidesz meetings attended by a few dozen people focused almost exclusively on local issues, recently they have increasingly begun to address the state of the Hungarian economy.

Fidesz members attending the meetings not only talked about the economy in general terms but also voiced specific criticisms. One source familiar with the constituency mentioned as an example that Fidesz members who own small local businesses, such as flower shops, complained that it was becoming increasingly difficult for them to make ends meet. They usually added, referring to Orbán’s childhood friend, the richest man in the country, “but look how well Lőrinc Mészáros is doing.”

According to the source, local Fidesz leaders could only give boilerplate responses to these concerns, usually saying that a national capitalist class was necessary. “These were venting sessions,” said the source, who attended several such events. According to him, Fidesz party members were somewhat reassured just by having their opinions heard.

The situation was different at János Lázár’s public forums, where it was more difficult to manage emotions. The reason for this was that anyone could participate freely in these forums. Lázár began holding his so-called Lázárinfó events at the end of March this year. He explained that while Fidesz had increasingly held closed events in recent years, Péter Magyar had spoken publicly in front of crowds gathered in various towns. Lázár tried to compete with Magyar with his own forums.

During these events, the minister was asked some pretty tough questions. In forums filled with heckling and swearing, Lázár was questioned about “the wealth squandered by the NER (a common reference to pro-government circles),” the scandalous management of central bank foundations, and “stolen EU funds.” The high proportion of critical comments surprised many within the government. “Those Fidesz members who watch Lázár’s forums are shocked by what people are saying,” said a political advisor with government connections.

This dissatisfaction was also reflected in opinion poll data. In the spring, internal polls commissioned by the government showed that Tisza was leading Fidesz by an even greater margin than in the fall. This was also evident in Medián’s public polls: according to their June survey, Tisza stood at 51 percent among voters ready to vote for a certain party, while Fidesz stood at 36 percent.

As a result, Fidesz’s rural MPs began to worry about their re-election for the first time since 2006. “Everyone knew that it was a close race, that the situation was tense,” said Fidesz politician representing a rural area.

By spring, Fidesz had come to the conclusion that no matter what they did, they would be unable to find anything to pin on Péter Magyar. Even though the campaign against Ukraine was in full swing at the time, during which Tisza was even accused, without solid evidence, of having ties to the Ukrainian secret service, this did not cause any serious political damage to the opposition party. Fidesz politicians began to complain they had underestimated Magyar. They told a political consultant close to the government that they felt they should have started treating him as a serious opponent sooner.

A Fidesz politician explained to the source why they did not like Magyar. The politician said that their problem stemmed from the fact that Péter Magyar was “like the good Fidesz, like the non-corrupt Fidesz.” In other words, they saw themselves in the young, dynamic opposition challenger. “It’s like looking in the mirror and seeing yourself twenty years ago,” the Fidesz politician said, according to the source. He said that because they were not prepared for this situation, it was difficult for them to deal with the challenge posed by Magyar.

The confidence of Fidesz was further eroded by the fact that in May, the prime minister himself took several steps that embarrassed the ruling party.

Chapter IV: Mistake after mistake

Viktor Orbán at the Benedictine Abbey in Tihany on May 9 – Source: Viktor Orbán’s Facebook page.

Viktor Orbán left the historic Tihany Abbey building on the afternoon of May 9 feeling satisfied. He believed that, thanks to his strategic sense, he had done the right thing in praising George Simion, the frontrunner in the Romanian presidential election, in his speech in the church.

He expressed this conviction again when, after his speech, he sat down with a few local politicians and priests at a pastry shop in Tihany. Orbán himself brought up why he considered it a clever move to stand up for the extremist Romanian politician known for his anti-Hungarian stance.

The prime minister believed that this move would pay off, just as he had previously predicted various international trends, including Donald Trump’s re-election. In this case, he expected that after his election, the Romanian politician would stand by him in his battles with the EU.

It soon became clear that Orbán had miscalculated. Pro-government politicians were forced to play down the prime minister’s statements so that it would not appear that Viktor Orbán had turned against Fidesz’s Transylvanian ally, the RMDSZ, which was campaigning against Simion. Moreover, the prime minister’s prediction proved to be wrong, as Simion lost the election on May 18.

Shortly thereafter, Orbán suffered another setback.

On June 4, the government withdrew from the parliamentary agenda a bill it called “transparency legislation,” which was intended to crack down on civil society and journalists. The retreat was embarrassing because, according to one government official, it was personally important to Orbán that the bill be passed.

The prime minister raised this issue in his annual review speech at the beginning of the year. After that, according to government sources, Orbán entrusted one of his most important advisors, Árpád Habony, with working out the details. This was also indicated by the fact that the final bill would have strengthened Habony’s circle.

The concept would have given considerable power to the Office for the Protection of Sovereignty (SzuHi), led by Tamás Lánczi, an ally of Habony. The office was established in 2024 and, on paper, investigated foreign influence, but in reality, it harassed civil society organizations that the government did not like, such as journalism non-profit Átlátszó and Transparency International Hungary. The draft “transparency” law strengthened the office’s power by allowing it to make recommendations to the government on which organizations accepting foreign funding posed a threat to the country’s sovereignty.

The proposal would have made it impossible for the targeted civil society organizations and media outlets to operate. They would not have been allowed to collect 1% tax donations or participate in EU tenders. Their supporters would have had to prove that the support they provided did not come from abroad. Banks would have been able to temporarily suspend the accounts of organizations receiving foreign support.

The drafters of the proposal involved the SzuHi in the process not only to strengthen its influence. They also needed the office because they did not want to decide on the authorization of foreign funding for civil society organizations based on objective criteria. According to a government official, there was a desire within the government to ensure that organizations close to Fidesz could continue to receive money from abroad. For example, the Fidesz party foundation had previously received funds from the foundations of German parties allied with Fidesz.

The proposal, which was put together in this way, was submitted to the Parliament on the night of May 13 by János Halász, a Fidesz MP. However, the government soon encountered serious resistance. The proposal was criticized not only by civil society organizations and professional bodies, but also behind closed doors by several Fidesz politicians.

The internal dissent became public when the government asked pro-government members of parliament to sign the proposal in as large numbers as possible. “It was a kind of panic reaction to the attacks,” said one Fidesz politician. He was referring to the government’s desire to demonstrate that the ruling party faction stood behind the proposal, which had provoked fierce public reaction. By May 20, however, only 109 of the 135 ruling party MPs had joined Halász.

The reluctance of the representatives stemmed from the fact that the details of the proposal were not clear even to them. They felt that it would be difficult to explain to voters such a complex issue, which even involved the little-known American agency USAID, which had been dismantled by the new Trump administration. It was also unclear to the representatives who would be subject to the law. According to a Fidesz politician, it was unclear, for example, whether the law would apply to local civil society organizations operating in rural towns. These organizations work together with Fidesz-led local governments and, as part of this, also implement projects financed by EU funds.

Furthermore, as the proposal contained very drastic measures, many in the government believed that its adoption would cost more votes than it would gain. “It would only have brought in voters from Mi Hazánk (a far-right opposition party), while we would have lost some of our old, middle-class voters,” said one Fidesz politician.

Several ministers tried to share these arguments with Orbán. Among them were Márton Nagy, Minister of National Economy, Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, János Bóka, Minister for European Union Affairs, and Tibor Navracsics, Minister of Public Administration and Regional Development. According to a government source, the four of them had opposed the proposal since it was submitted, had been in constant consultation with each other, and had tried separately to convince Orbán that they were right.

All four ministers had their own reasons for disapproving of the draft. Márton Nagy, for example, was concerned that international criticism of the law could weaken the forint, further worsening the already uncertain economic outlook. Gulyás had problems with the excessive strengthening of the SzuHi. According to a government source, the minister disliked the organization so much that he referred to it as a “clown office” in private circles.

The proposal sparked a debate at a government meeting in late May. According to one government source, several ministers said that the proposal would come at too high a political cost. Orbán did not respond substantively to the comments made at the government meeting, but due to the political risks, he decided to withdraw the proposal a few days later. Máté Kocsis, the leader of the Fidesz faction, then announced that the draft law would be removed from the agenda of the National Assembly (officially, the vote on it was postponed).

Orbán thus abandoned the so-called transparency law in early June. Soon after, however, the government suffered another embarrassment.

On June 28, the Pride parade was held in the capital with record attendance, despite the government’s earlier ban. “It was an own goal,” admitted a government official, who said they had misjudged the situation when they thought the organizers would not dare to hold Pride after the ban.

Although Orbán played a key role in this series of mistakes in the spring, he held his campaign team responsible for the problems and began to reorganize it.

Chapter V: Orbán is dissatisfied

Orbán gives a lecture to members of the Fighters’ Club – Source: Orbán’s Facebook page

In early April, the staff of one of Fidesz’s Pest County constituency presidents created a group on the WhatsApp messaging app. Their aim was to facilitate communication between Fidesz politicians within the constituency. They invited the Fidesz mayors of the municipalities in the constituency and the leaders of the local Fidesz grassroots organizations to join the group.

With the help of the group, several mobilization campaigns were carried out in the spring. Through this, they organized a local signature collection campaign called Voks2025 on Ukraine’s EU membership. They also recruited members for an organization called the Fight Club, which supports Fidesz on social media.

According to one member of the group, recruitment took place in such a way that the leaders of the grassroots organizations operating in each municipality recommended people they considered suitable for membership in the club. This list of names was then shared with the constituency president in the WhatsApp group. The latter forwarded the names of potential candidates to the Fidesz party headquarters. There, they checked whether the people on the list were members of Fidesz and decided what to do with those candidates who were not party members.

This is how the Fight Club was organized in the spring. Orbán wanted to use this initiative to shake up the internal community of Fidesz, which was increasingly losing confidence as Tisza gradually gained strength.

Orbán believed that the Fidesz campaign had stalled because the team running it had performed poorly. For this reason, according to sources close to the government, he was dissatisfied with several senior members of the campaign team. This included Árpád Habony, who devised the communication strategy, Antal Rogán, who managed communications, András Gyürk, who had been managing Fidesz’s campaigns since 2010, and Gábor Kubatov, who was responsible for election mobilization. “He blamed them for not being able to get a grip on Tisza,” the source said of Orbán.

The prime minister therefore wanted to revamp his campaign. In doing so, he also considered looking for a new campaign strategist to replace Arthur Finkelstein, who died in 2017. Finkelstein, who had previously worked for the US Republican Party and helped Israel’s right-wing Likud party, worked on several Fidesz campaigns until his death. In doing so, he reinforced the enemy-seeking policy in Fidesz’s campaigns.

Although Fidesz continued to use Finkelstein’s methods, they felt the absence of a campaign strategist. According to a government official, since the 2018 election campaign, which focused on the migration crisis and in which Finkelstein was still involved, there has been no innovation in Fidesz’s communication. “Since then, they have been using the same methods, just applying them to different actors,” said the source from Fidesz’s campaign team. He was referring to the ruling party’s attempt this year to attack Ukraine using the same model as its previous anti-migrant campaign.

Orbán has not yet found a new strategist. Instead, he decided to replace campaign manager András Gyürk with Balázs Orbán (no relation to Viktor Orbán), the prime minister’s political director. Although the prime minister only officially announced this at a picnic held for Fidesz insiders in September in Kötcse, it had already been an open secret within the ruling party in the months leading up it.

A Fidesz politician explained the change by saying that what Fidesz had previously done so masterfully was no longer enough for the 2026 election campaign. One of the ruling party’s main strengths in previous campaigns was that the team led by Gyürk and Kubatov knew who Fidesz’s voters were. In the final days of the campaign, party activists personally encouraged these people to vote for Fidesz again. “The Kubatov-Gyürk duo knew how to do this,” said the source. (Although Orbán also mentioned in his leaked speech to the Fight Club in October that they were not doing well in terms of mobilization. )

Orbán saw that mobilization alone would not be enough by 2026. In the meantime, social media has taken on an even greater role in politics thanks to Péter Magyar’s more skillful use of Facebook, achieving more interaction than the government’s leading politicians.

The government’s communication machine was also adversely affected by the fact that targeted political advertising will disappear from Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube starting this fall. The American companies that operate these sites made this decision because they did not want to comply with the new EU transparency rules. “From now on, it will not be possible to artificially increase the number of interactions. A new solution is needed,” said a Fidesz source, referring to the fact that pro-government organizations have spent billions in recent years to strengthen their presence on social media.

Orbán and his allies created the Warriors’ Club in response to this changed situation. However, the initiative was not unanimously welcomed within the ruling party. According to one Fidesz source, several politicians complained that the name was not very fortunate. They pointed out that the ruling party had been talking about peace for years, and that the name “warriors” did not fit with this. “This caused internal tensions,” he said of the debates on the subject.

Orbán was not convinced by these criticisms. Continuing with the concept, he announced the creation of digital civic circles in his speech in Tusnádfürdő at the end of July. Unlike the Warriors’ Club, this was not aimed at party members, but at a wider audience. “The community element that previously existed around the party has now subsided. The digital civic circles want to revive this,” said the government politician, who believes that the aim is to build a political movement alongside the party.

As summer approached, Fidesz built itself up in other ways as well. They announced a 3 percent discount mortgage program aimed at young voters. They talked constantly about handouts such as the 30,000 forint food vouchers for pensioners and income tax exemptions for mothers with two or three children. Orbán also worked through the summer, appearing on various pro-government podcasts, where he asserted that they would win again next year.

These efforts were reflected in the numbers, as Fidesz’s support did not fall further. In September, Medián measured that while Tisza led by 15 percentage points among certain party voters in June, by September this gap had narrowed to 13 points. “The current opinion is that the race is closer than we initially thought, but with a lot of work, the election can be won,” said a Fidesz politician, explaining that they are somewhat more optimistic about the situation than they were in the spring.

Illustration: Virág Török / Telex