SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Hungarians are getting ready to cast their votes in tomorrow's national election. Polls leading up to this election have shown Prime Minister Viktor Orban trailing a younger conservative challenger by double digits. President Trump is a major supporter of Viktor Orban and sent President Vice President JD Vance to Budapest earlier this week.
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JD VANCE: And I stand here today because President Trump and I stand with Europe. We stand for sovereignty. We stand for Hungary, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the man who has done more to defend those values than anyone else, Viktor Orban.
SIMON: NPR's Rob Schmitz was at the rally and joins us now from Budapest. Rob, thanks so much for being with us.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Morning, Scott.
SIMON: Can you measure the effect that Vice President Vance's appearance had on the Hungarian electorate?
SCHMITZ: It's hard to measure. You know, I've been speaking to voters in various parts of Hungary this week, and for those who support Viktor Orban, they were thrilled that Vice President Vance made this visit to their country. But these are voters who were going to vote for Orban anyway. I did manage to speak to voters who would be, I guess, in the swing voter category, and I got the sense that they had already made up their minds and that someone like Vice President Vance was not going to sway them.
SIMON: Can you tell us why you believe Viktor Orban is so far behind in the polls at the moment?
SCHMITZ: Well, in his nearly 16 straight years in power, Orban has never had a challenger like he has now, and that challenger is a man named Peter Magyar. He's 45 years old, and like Orban, he's a conservative. He actually comes from Orban's own party. But unlike Orban, he wants a closer relationship with the European Union, and he's made a name for himself by highlighting examples of what he calls Orban's corruption as prime minister. Here's some tape from Magyar from a rally this past week.
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PETER MAGYAR: (Non-English language spoken).
SCHMITZ: And, Scott, he's saying here to his supporters that "the vile power of Viktor Orban does not represent the interests of Hungarians." "They proudly say they represent Russian interests rather than Hungarian and European interests," he said.
SIMON: And, Rob, how close is Viktor Orban to Russia and Vladimir Putin?
SCHMITZ: Viktor Orban and his government are very close ally to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, in the days leading up to the election, recordings of Orban's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, speaking to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov were released, and they showed Szijjarto offering to hand over internal EU documents to Lavrov, as well as offering help to lift EU sanctions that are placed against family members of Russian oligarchs. And that's something that Peter Magyar has called treasonous.
And it's worth pointing out here that Orban's campaign posters throughout Budapest have pictures of a smiling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with the words, do not let him have the last laugh. Orban has made an enemy out of Zelenskyy and blames him for starting the war, even though Russia invaded Ukraine in the first place.
SIMON: And what else do Hungarians tell you about this election?
SCHMITZ: Well, we've met a lot of voters this past week, and I covered the last election here four years ago. And I'd say, anecdotally, I'm finding more and more voters this time around who voted for Viktor Orban in the past who are now changing their votes to Peter Magyar because they are fed up with the inflation in this country, the state of the economy and the politics of Orban.
SIMON: NPR's Rob Schmitz, who will be hosting All Things Considered live from Budapest as votes come in on Sunday. So let's be sure to tune in. Rob, thanks so much for being with us. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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