Vance to visit Hungary days before Orbán’s election challenge, foreign minister says

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — U.S. Vice President JD Vance will visit Hungary days before Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is set to face his toughest election challenge in two decades, according to Hungary’s foreign minister.

Vance’s office has not confirmed the trip.

The nationalist Orbán, who has been in power since 2010 and is looking for his fifth consecutive election victory on April 12, faces an unprecedented challenge from the center-right Tisza and its leader, Péter Magyar.

Trailing in most polls, Orbán has embarked on a nationwide campaign tour in an effort to shore up support.

Magyar, who has promised to restore Hungary’s democratic institutions that have eroded under Orbán and steer the country back toward its Western allies, has tested what once seemed an unshakable grip on power by the pro-Russian populist.

Speaking on a podcast that aired on Friday, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Vance’s visit “stems from the very intensive Hungarian–American intergovernmental relationship.” He did not specify a date when Vance might arrive in Hungary.

Vance’s planned trip would come after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited the capital Budapest last month, where he strongly endorsed Orbán’s candidacy.

Orbán is one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in the European Union, and has actively curried the U.S. president’s favor leading up to the April vote. Orbán earlier expressed his hopes that Trump would make his own trip to Hungary before the election.

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AP writer Michelle L. Price contributed.