POLITICO Brussels has proved countless times over the past 15 years that it does not sympathize with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government. Now, the outlet openly manipulates its polling average Poll of Polls, likely to influence the tight race leading up to the parliamentary election in 2026.
POLITICO was busted completely by accident over the weekend, as Political Director of the Hungarian Prime Minister Balázs Orbán posted on Sunday, 23 November about the upcoming elections. The post included a screenshot of the outlet’s Poll of Polls, which showed support for governing party Fidesz at 44 per cent and opposition TISZA at 43 per cent. Balázs Orbán even highlighted that, despite its progressive leaning, POLITICO was also reporting Viktor Orbán’s advantage.
However, in less than 24 hours, the data changed fundamentally. Since Monday morning, Poll of Polls shows TISZA leading with 47 per cent against Fidesz’s 38. In the new aggregate, hard-right Our Homeland (Mi Hazánk) also dipped from 5 to 4 per cent, below the parliamentary threshold, while progressive leftist Democratic Coalition (DK) jumped from 2 per cent to 6, making it theoretically the only party other than the two big parties to break the threshold.
‘Such blatant data tampering exposes exactly how far some are willing to go to distort #Hungary’s political reality,’ Balázs Orbán reacted to the changed data on Monday, adding that Poll of Polls had turned into a ‘one-sided construction’.
Later, it was revealed that POLITICO deleted surveys conducted by the Hungarian Institute for Social Research and Center for Fundamental Rights—both showing the governing party ahead of TISZA—but added a survey by Publicus, giving a 9-point lead for TISZA.
Hungarian Conservative asked POLITICO about what methods they use in deciding which surveys they include and why they deleted the two pollsters’ data on Monday; however, we did not receive any response by the time of writing.
‘Center for Fundamental Rights was the third most accurate in Hungary during the European elections in 2024’
However, it is already clear that accuracy is not an indicator for the outlet when selecting pollsters. Center for Fundamental Rights was the third most accurate in Hungary during the European elections in 2024, with an error margin of only 1.6 percentage points. The Hungarian Institute for Social Research had an error margin of 2.7 pps—the same as Publicus in 2024. However, Publicus made the largest error in the 2022 parliamentary elections, missing the results by 20 pps in its final poll before the vote. Other opposition-leaning pollsters, such as Republikon and Závecz Research, were also off by 16 pps, all overestimating the opposition and underestimating Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz. Republikon and Závecz are also included in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls.
This was, of course, not the first time POLITICO openly campaigned against Viktor Orbán. Hungarian Conservative covered several similar cases, including when the outlet tried to discredit Hungary after the Venezuelan elections last year, falsely reporting that Budapest was blocking sanctions on Maduro’s regime. On the other hand, POLITICO was confirmed to have covered up former US President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden’s corruption cases.
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