The Far Right

United States Vice President JD Vance is travelling to Budapest to bolster support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose Fidesz Party faces its most difficult election in over a decade.

The White House announced last week that Vance would arrive in Hungary on Tuesday and hold two days of bilateral meetings.

In February, US President Donald Trump endorsed right-wing leader Orban ahead of Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary elections, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the country that month to show support.

Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology at Princeton University in the US who has spent years as an analyst and critic of Orban’s government, says that the trip is meant to underscore the close relationship between Trump and his Hungarian counterpart.

“Orban will make a big deal out of the fact that he’s got Trump’s support. And that’s why Vance is coming,” she said, adding that she is sceptical that Vance’s trip will have a large impact on the outcome of the election.

“If you look at the polls in Hungary, they show the opposition with an 8 to 12 percent lead, in some recent polls up to a 20 percent lead. One visit by a relatively low-profile American vice president is not going to change that.”

Robust opposition

Orban’s 16-year tenure has been marked by the erosion of the independence of institutions such as the judiciary and the media, as well as reforms that critics say have slanted the electoral system in favour of Orban and his Fidesz party.

But despite what the opposition has described as a deeply imbalanced electoral environment, most polls show the 62-year-old Orban trailing the 45-year-old opposition leader, Peter Magyar, and his Tisza Party.

Magyar is a former high-ranking Fidesz official who broke with the party two years ago and has emerged as a popular voice railing against Orban’s rule.

His campaign has focused on corruption, deteriorating social services, economic conditions, and Orban’s combative relationship with the European Union, which has often centred on immigration and support for Ukraine.

The European Union suspended billions of euros in funding for Hungary in 2022 over what it characterised as democratic backsliding and declining judicial independence.

Magyar has pledged a more cordial relationship with the European bloc, as well as reforms that could lead to the restoration of suspended funds.

While Orban has depicted the opposition as a destabilising force that will sell out the country’s national interests on behalf of Ukraine and the EU, Magyar’s right-leaning politics mean that policies on issues such as immigration would see little change.

“Magyar is centre-right; he’s basically a believer in much of what Orban has done, minus the corruption. In EU terms, he’s slightly eurosceptical but wants to get the money back,” said Scheppele.

Blueprint for the US right

While Orban’s approach to consolidating power and his embrace of far-right politics have mired his relationships in Europe, they have made him a source of inspiration for the US far right and prominent members of the Trump administration, such as JD Vance.

Hungary has previously hosted the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual summit where individuals and groups from across the US right and allies from other countries gather to discuss the future of the conservative movement.

When CPAC convened in Budapest in 2024, Trump sent a video praising Orban for “proudly fighting on the front lines of the battle to rescue Western civilisation”.

Shared ire for Muslims, immigrants, and centres of liberal politics such as universities has helped cement that bond, and Vance himself has enjoyed especially close relations with Orban’s government.

When he was selected as Trump’s running mate in July 2024, Orban’s political director shared a photo of himself posing with Vance, captioned: “A Trump-Vance administration sounds just right.”

Orban’s Hungary has been at the centre of the Trump administration’s shifting policy towards Europe, firmly aligning itself with far-right parties and immigration restrictionists in countries such as France and Germany.

Scheppele says that Orban’s relationship with the Trump administration and status as an icon of the global far right may be of limited use in an election that is mostly focused on domestic issues.

But she noted that more tangible steps, such as a pledge of US financial support from the Trump administration if Orban wins, could buoy his chances in the closing days of the race.

“The big thing to watch is that, when Orban came to the US recently, Trump appeared to promise a fiscal safety net if Orban wins,” said Scheppele, adding that the US took similar steps before the 2025 midterm elections in Argentina in order to bolster right-wing ally Javier Milei, now the country’s president.

“Trump hasn’t made that kind of formal promise, and he’s now denied that he made any specific promise. But the Orban people think that Trump is going to backstop them if they win the election,” Scheppele added. “If Vance makes that kind of announcement, it could be a real game-changer.”

For the second year in a row, United States Vice President JD Vance has topped the straw poll at the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), one of the biggest right-wing gatherings in the country.

The poll is a bellwether – albeit, not necessarily an accurate one – for who might ultimately become the Republican nominee for the next presidential race.

During this year’s four-day conference, attendees were asked which candidate they would prefer at the top of the Republican Party ticket for the 2028 election.

The results were revealed on stage Saturday. Vance had swept up 53 percent of the votes cast by nearly 1,600 attendees.

But rising up the ranks was another senior official under US President Donald Trump: his top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A former senator from Florida, Rubio notched 35 percent of the vote.

It was a markedly improved standing for Rubio, who tied for fourth place at last year’s CPAC straw poll.

That poll, taken within weeks of Trump starting his second term, showed Vance with 61 percent support, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon with 12 percent, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7 percent. Rubio and Representative Elise Stefanik both earned 3 percent.

Attendance at CPAC, an annual conference, tends to skew away from the political centre and farther to the right.

Speakers at this year’s conference included Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Iranian opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, and Eduardo and Flavio Bolsonaro, the sons of Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was imprisoned last September for attempting to subvert his country’s democracy.

But this year’s straw poll comes at a critical time for the Republican Party.

Less than eight months remain until November’s midterm elections in the US, and Republicans are hoping to defend their congressional majorities at the ballot box.

Trump, long the standard-bearer for his party, has seen his approval numbers sink since his return to office in 2025. Earlier this week, a survey from the news agency Reuters and the research firm Ipsos found that only 36 percent of US citizens approved of his job performance, a new low.

The ongoing war in Iran and economic frustrations, including rising gas prices linked to the conflict, are among the factors contributing to the slump.

While Trump has teased he may seek a third term, US law prevents modern presidents from serving more than two. His second presidency is set to expire in 2028.

That leaves an open question as to who may succeed the 79-year-old Republican.

Vance, a veteran and former single-term senator from Ohio, is seen to represent a more isolationist branch of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) base. He has generally been opposed to US involvement in foreign conflicts, though he has defended Trump’s decision to join Israel in joint strikes on Iran.

Rubio, meanwhile, has a longer political resume than Vance and is seen to be more hawkish towards regime change, particularly in his family’s ancestral home of Cuba. He served as a senator for Florida from 2011 until his unanimous confirmation as secretary of state in 2025.

Both men had been critical of Trump before joining his administration. Vance once called Trump “unfit” for office, and Rubio derided Trump as a “con artist” and an “embarrassment” when he was a rival candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

CPAC tends not to survey participants about who should be president when a Republican is already in the Oval Office.

But the straw polls it held before and after Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, have shown a noticeable realignment in the Republican Party.

In the decade leading up to the 2016 election – Trump’s first successful campaign for office – moderate Republican Mitt Romney and libertarian Rand Paul consistently topped the CPAC straw polls.

Ever since his first term, however, Trump has trounced the competition.

Despite his 2020 election defeat, he still topped the straw poll in 2021, with 55 percent support, and his numbers climbed each successive year, through to his re-election in 2024.

Experts have noted that the Republican Party has largely consolidated around Trump’s politics, with the few remaining moderate and critical voices increasingly marginalised.

The CPAC straw poll, however, is not always accurate. Ahead of Trump’s victory in 2016, the majority of straw poll participants backed Senator Cruz of Texas to be the next president. Trump came in third place with 15 percent support, trailing Rubio at 30 percent.

Gregoire headed a list uniting the traditional left, the Greens and the Communists to victory in French capital.

The Socialist Party’s Emmanuel Gregoire has won the Paris mayoral race, as the results of nationwide municipal elections showed gains for the traditional left and right, and a major win for the far right in the city of Nice.

Sunday’s run-off votes in more than 1,500 communes saw Gregoire on course to become mayor of the French capital, with exit polls showing that the far-right National Rally (RN) fell short of taking control of the key southern cities of Marseille and Toulon.

Gregoire, who headed a list uniting the traditional left, the Greens and the Communists, clinched the prized mayoralty with an estimated 51 to 53 percent of the vote, according to pollsters, seeing off Conservative rival Rachida Dati, who conceded defeat.

The 48-year-old son of a teacher and civil servant is stepping into the spotlight after previously serving as deputy to outgoing mayor and fellow Socialist Anne Hidalgo. During his bid, he had promised that Paris would stand as a “city of refuge” and a “bastion against the right and the far right”.

In Marseille, the second-largest city in the country, Socialist Mayor Benoit Payan was on track to be re-elected with 56.3 percent of the vote, according to an Elabe poll for BFM TV. RN’s chances of winning the coveted prize took a hit after the withdrawal of a hard-left candidate from France Unbowed (LFI) aimed at uniting left-wing voters.

Socialist Party chief Olivier Faure hailed the wins in Paris and Marseille, positioning his party as a bulwark against the far right. “Only the left can prevent France from this regression,” he said.

In Toulon, an Elebe poll showed centre-right candidate Josée Massi leading at 53.5 percent, with RN candidate Laure Lavalette conceding defeat. Yet, senior RN officials rejected suggestions that the party’s loss indicated it had hit a “glass ceiling” ahead of next year’s presidential election.

“The National Rally and its candidates have achieved tonight, in this municipal election, the biggest breakthrough in its entire history,” RN chief Jordan Bardella said, alluding to wins in local constituencies where it previously had no presence.

In the first round, Bardella’s anti-immigration party won re-election in the southern city of Perpignan, and it won in smaller cities, too. And on Sunday, exit polls indicated that Eric Ciotti, a former mainstream conservative who is now an ally of the RN, won in Nice, France’s fifth-biggest city.

Former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe was re-elected mayor in his northern city of Le Havre, according to the TF1 and LCI broadcasters, delivering a better-than-expected performance that boosts his hopes of running for president in 2027.

Philippe, a centre-right politician who served as prime minister under centrist President Emmanuel Macron, made a speech with a clear national message, saying his victory showed that “there were reasons to be hopeful” in the values of France and that the extremes can be beaten.

Turnout at 5pm local time (16:00 GMT) was just higher than 48 percent in France’s mainland, more than than in the 2020 vote held during the COVID-19 pandemic, but four points lower than in 2014, according to the Ministry of Interior.

Voters choosing between incumbent PM Robert Golob and pro-Trump Janez Jansa, with neither likely to win parliamentary majority.

Slovenians are voting in a tight parliamentary election, as incumbent liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob takes on right-wing populist Janez Jansa, who is eyeing a comeback.

Polls opened at 7am local time (06:00 GMT) on Sunday and will close at 7pm (18:00 GMT), with exit poll results to be released after voting.

A return of Jansa, an admirer of United States President Donald Trump, could see the former Yugoslav nation, a European Union member of two million people, take an illiberal turn again after four years of centre-left rule under 59-year-old Golob.

Neither is likely to win a parliamentary majority in the vote, which could be decided by smaller coalition partners.

Latest opinion polls confirm Jansa’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and Golob’s Freedom Movement (GS) are set for a close race after an eleventh-hour campaign drama involving allegations of foreign meddling and corruption.

The last government of three-time premier Jansa, who is pro-Israel and an ally of nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, saw mass protests and EU criticism over rule-of-law concerns.

Under Golob, a political newcomer when he took over from Jansa in 2022, Slovenia legalised same-sex marriage and became one of the few EU countries to describe Israel’s war in Gaza as genocide.

Analysts say Jansa, 67, has a devoted voter base, and the lower the turnout, the higher the chances of him winning the election.

At stake is the domestic and foreign agenda of Slovenia, where the outgoing government focused on social and health reforms but delivered mixed results, resulting in a fall in popularity for Golob’s governing coalition.

Jansa has promised to introduce tax breaks for businesses and cut funding for civil society, welfare and media.

Slovenia, an Alpine country with a developed industrial base, emerged stronger from the collapse of Yugoslavia than other states such as Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina, which have been held back by war, economic sanctions and political infighting.

Jansa would also likely change Golob’s foreign policy under which Slovenia was one of the few European countries that recognised an independent Palestinian state and last year imposed an arms embargo on Israel.