> Trump Curse? Viktor Orbán Sees Re-Election Hopes Fading

Just off the main square of this picturesque provincial city, a crowd braced against a cold spring wind as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán took the stage for a re-election rally. Within seconds, a chorus of boos erupted.

“I see our opponents are here,” he said above the noise, before launching into a speech heavy on his longtime grievances against the European Union and a more recent fight he has picked with neighboring Ukraine.

For more than a decade, Orbán has styled himself a champion of ordinary Hungarians and a forefather of the international conservative movement, cultivating relationships with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and President Trump.

But in places such as this that once saw the promise of prosperity in Orbán’s Fidesz Party, many voters have turned their backs. Ahead of elections on April 12, anger has grown over a moribund economy and what some critics see as a corrupt system that enriches those close to the prime minister. Orbán, they say, has consolidated his control over most levers of power in the country and has few new ideas for its future.

“He attained absolute power and lost sight of the goal,” said milk farmer Imre Barna, 32, standing in front of a stall selling “Make Hungary Great Again” T-shirts with Orbán’s picture. “The system itself has started to crack.”

A young upstart, Péter Magyar, with his new Tisza Party, has galvanized the country, with some polls showing him pulling ahead of Orbán by nearly 15 percentage points. That shift has surprised many who credited Orban’s total two decades in power to his cunning political instincts.

Trump on Friday said the U.S. would use its “full economic might” to help Hungary, a pledge he successfully made to Argentina and Honduras ahead of elections to support his favored candidates. He didn’t specify how the U.S. would do that. “We are excited to invest in the future Prosperity that will be generated by Orbán’s continued Leadership!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social-media platform.