Hungarian Conservative

In an unprecedented twist of events, we now have the incumbent party running a non-incumbent candidate, while the non-incumbent party is running a former incumbent candidate. The incumbent advantage is a well-documented phenomenon in American politics, a lot of which is due to simple name recognition. This aspect now heavily favours Former President Trump.

‘Especially after the assassination attempt, there will be some sympathy for Trump. The images as he was raising his fist, with the American flag in the background, in defiance of critical violence, with blood on his face—that’s a very strong image that could be burnt into the minds of the American people. And since right now, we are living in the world of images, unfortunately, and not in the world of words, that might be a very, very potent weapon in the hands of Republicans demonstrating that Trump is up to his task, as opposed to Biden, who is frail mentally and physically as well.’

As more and more people from his own party call on President Biden to step aside, President Trump’s victory in the 2024 US presidential election seems more certain by the day. However, how much can one trust polling data after what happened in 2016 and 2022?

With the 1960 US presidential race between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon being so close, many scholars and commentators believed at the time that it was the first ever televised presidential debate that decided the outcome of the election. As a result, most campaign strategists deemed debating too risky for the candidates, thus no presidential debate took place in the US until 1976, when incumbent Gerald Ford debated Jimmy Carter.

According to CNN’s own poll, more than two-thirds, 67 per cent of the viewers thought that President Trump had won the debate. President Biden’s odds for re-election plummeted after the event, with bookmakers giving him only about a 22.5 per cent chance for re-election on average. Meanwhile, some in the left-leaning media call on Biden not to stand for re-election.

Donald Trump has expanded his lead over Joe Biden in the national polling aggregate since his conviction. Meanwhile, President Biden’s approval rating by Gallup is at an abysmal 38 per cent ahead of the CNN debate in Atlanta, Georgia tonight, which is not a good indicator for reelection.

While Vitézy led for a long time, the mayoral elections ended up in Karácsony’s favour. Fidesz took the expected 11 Parliamentary seats.

In the first 24 hours after the historic guilty verdict, President Trump’s campaign raised a whopping $52.8 million, according to the announcement of the campaign itself. If this is true, that would be a shattering new record, beating out the $26 million the Biden camp raised in one day in August 2020, after they announced that Kamala Harris would be their Vice Presidential nominee, the first black female candidate on a presidential ticket.

President Trump is leading President Biden by double digits in Nevada, a state President Biden won by 2.4 points in 2020. The Republican challenger was also shown to have the advantage in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania as well; with the only exception being Michigan, where President Biden leads by a single point.

The typically left-leaning pollster also found that 46 per cent of Hungarians have a positive view of the European Parliament, as opposed to 14 per cent who have a negative view. According to the same poll, public health is the number one issue for Hungarian voters in this election.

Former President Trump’s criminal trial has begun in Manhattan, which some polling data suggests could cost him his victory in the presidential election in November. However, President Biden is not in a great position either as the economy and the state of foreign affairs have recently worsened, and he was already struggling with a low approval rating on these issues. How will all this end?

‘It’s just unarguably the case that whatever it is they accuse someone like Viktor Orbán of doing, the progressive left in America, it is quite clear that these conditions apply in immeasurably more effect to the American system.’

Donald Trump is currently leading Joe Biden in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate by a wider margin than what Republicans ever held against Democrats leading up to the 2022 midterms, 4.3 points. Independent and third-party candidates also give the GOP a better opportunity for victory than in 2022.

The governing Fidesz-KDNP party coalition in Hungary has maintained their support, while fewer would vote for the parties of the left-wing alliance than did in 2022, as revealed by a joint political year-opening roundtable discussion organized by five polling institutes on Thursday, 11 January in Budapest.

In the year 2023, a political mechanism was broken in Hungary: even downturns and runaway inflation could not dramatically alter the balance of political power.

Rarely has a single year carried such profound implications for global security and the future as the one that lies ahead. With conflicts erupting across the globe, the foundations of the international order are being relentlessly tested. Compounding
these challenges, 2024 is marked by the impending presidential elections in two formidable and opposing powers, the United States and Russia. Similar gravity can be attributed to the European Parliament elections scheduled for the same year, where a realistic opportunity exists for the reinforcement of right-leaning forces.

President Biden has to fight off multiple challengers from left-wing third-party and independent candidates, and attempt to turn around a very low approval rating of his economic policies. In light of the most recent polls, even some in his own party are questioning whether he should run for re-election next year.

Fidesz’s communications director István Hollik announced the campaign aiming to promote the government’s national consultation initiative on his social media on 20 November.

Hungarian political analyst and commentator András László pointed out that according to a recent survey, a coalition of ECR, ID, and Fidesz MEPs could become the strongest political group in the European Parliament in 2024.

‘I think that’s why the European Commission does not take the approach with Eurobarometer that the Hungarian government is taking with the National Consultations—because they would realize that Europeans are more supportive of centre-right policies than they would want to put their name and admit to.’

Despite having only two Democrats and eight Republicans on the ballot, Jeff Landry, with the endorsement of President Trump, managed to win over 50 per cent of the popular vote in the primary, and thus became the next governor of Louisiana. What does this mean for 2024?

‘According to recent polls, neither United Right nor Civic Platform will be able to form a government on its own…Donald Tusk’s situation seems easier in that he may have a realistic chance of including both the aforementioned Lewica and the Third Way alliance in the future governing coalition. This does not mean, however, that it would be easy for him to govern with these parties, and indeed such multi-party coalitions—let us not forget that the KO is itself an alliance—are often not very stable and long-lived.’

The former POTUS is also up by 1.1 points in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, which tends to underestimate his performance in presidential elections.

The event shed light on the how propaganda messages are being disguised as public opinion by European mainstream elites, and the intricate relationship between fear and politics in Europe.

According to Professor Bill Durodié, the report’s author, many questions in the Eurobarometer surveys primarily revolve around respondents’ perceptions of the European Union, its institutions, policies, and direction, and the report demonstrates that the formulation and presentation of questions and response options have been designed to promote ‘integrationist’ sentiments.

According to the survey’s results, more than three-quarters (77 per cent) of respondents agreed that the European Union should send ‘migrant applicants’ to Hungary only with the approval of the Hungarian government.

Previously, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary voiced his support for the presumptive Republican challenger, Former President Donald Trump. Both statesmen are making the case that their preferred US Presidential candidate would be better for peace in Eastern Europe.

According to the findings of a poll by Nézőpont Intézet, 54 per cent of the population believes that another world war could come soon, while 55 per cent fears nuclear strikes from one of the parties. Prime Minister Orbán has shared similarly ominous sentiments in the past.

While last September, only 40 per cent were satisfied with the transformed utility cost reduction scheme, by March this year the same number rose to 49 per cent. Additionally, the percentage of those dissatisfied dropped from 52 to 44 per cent, the data shows.

Both Nézőpont Intézet, typically associated with the governing party, and Medián, generally viewed as closer to the opposition, put Fidesz ahead of the strongest opposition party, the Democratic Coalition (DK), by over 35 percentage points.