Election forecast and situation analysis

By István Benedek, Samu Märcz, Áron J. Szászi

In Hungary, two elections are scheduled for June 9, 2024, where voters will simultaneously elect members of the European Parliament and municipal representatives. The ongoing political season has been marked by turmoil and unprecedented events. The February paedophilia scandal not only led to the resignation of President Novák but also significantly undermined public support for Fidesz. Former Fidesz insider Péter Magyar, ex-husband of former Justice Minister Varga (who also resigned due to the scandal), capitalised on the situation by launching a public attack against Fidesz and establishing his new TISZA party. The distribution of Hungarian MEP seats between parties is highly uncertain, primarily due to the rapid pace of political developments and the fragmentation of the opposition landscape. The Budapest office of Grayling has engaged experts of Hungarian politics to produce this forecast and situation analysis to help navigate our clients and partners through the turbulent political environment.

Methodology

Our analysis and forecast are informed by insights from Hungary’s leading political analysts, pollsters, and social scientists. We distributed our questionnaire to experts with diverse political affiliations and backgrounds. It is important to highlight that this study does not provide an objective measure of the popularity of different parties, but it is the aggregation of subjective evaluations of experts of Hungarian politics. 15 experts of Hungarian politics shared their expectations and gave us interpretations of the events that led to this exciting campaign season. Our survey was completed by experts of 7 think tank, academics of 4 institutions and 2 political journalists. Invited experts completed our questionnaire between May 7 and May 13.

European elections

Our experts expect all Hungarian parties and coalitions to lose MEP seats, except to the newly emerged TISZA party of Péter Magyar. Based on the median forecast, the governing Fidesz-KDNP is expected to lose 3 of their seats, sending 10 representatives to the European Parliament. TISZA is expected to gain 6 seats, becoming the strongest force in the opposition camp. It is worth highlighting that half of our respondents expect TISZA to significantly transform the Hungarian party system, with many viewing it as a new dominant opposition party and a potential challenger to Fidesz.

Median expert opinion suggest that the joint list of Democratic Coalition, Hungarian Socialist Party, and Dialogue will only have three representatives in the European Parliament. That would be two fewer seats than these parties were able  to win in the last European elections. The satiric Two-Tailed Dog Party and the far-right and hard Eurosceptic Our Homeland are expected to be elected to the European Parliament for the first time. Median expert opinion forecasts 1 seat for each party. In contrast, the majority of surveyed experts expects the liberal Momentum and the right-wing Jobbik to lose their MEP seats. Out of the 15 experts, only two expected Momentum to win at least one seat, while none expected Jobbik to get above the 5% threshold.  Only one expert expected that LMP will get elected to the EP. A third of the respondents (5 experts) based their expectations on opinion polls.

Municipal elections

The expert opinion on the Budapest mayoral race is almost unanimous. 11 respondent expects the incumbent Gergely Karácsony to get re-elected, while only 3 people chose his third-party challenger, Dávid Vitézy to succeed. No one expected the Fidesz candidate, Alexandra Szentkirályi to win the race. Two analysts who expect Dávid Vitézy to win also expect Alexandra Szentkirályi to drop out of the race.

We also asked experts to choose which “cities with county rights” they expect to host competitive races. About two thirds of our respondents considered the cities of Eger, Miskolc, Győr and Szolnok to be competitive races in the municipal elections. About half of the experts expected tight races in Tatabánya, Nyíregyháza and Hódmezővásárhely, while third of them thought similarly about Szekszárd and Baja. In the 2019 municipal elections, only 7 cities (with county rights) saw close races, where the difference between the top two mayoral candidates were below 5%. Experts’ answers show that the general expectation is a rematch in these cities between the opposition and Fidesz. Miskolc and Hódmezővásárhely are two cities where the opposition could easily win 5 years ago, but a tight race is expected this time. In the latter city, Péter Márki-Zay, the joint opposition’s former PM candidate, is once again running  for re-election as the incumbent mayor.