The period ahead will be about, among other things, the transformation of the party system and planning for 2026. Two important questions arise in this context, one is who will represent the significant number of left-wing voters in 2026, and the other is whether Péter Magyar and the TISZA Party can organise themselves into a nationwide organisation in preparation for 2026, and if so, how they intend to tackle the majority electoral system that is tilting towards the governing parties. While not directly about 2026, an important question is what is happening in Budapest, including the kerfuffle surrounding the election of the mayor and the functioning or lack of functioning of the incoming assembly. Across the country, the hiatus between municipal elections and the inauguration of the next municipal term is creating peculiar situations, and the start of the next municipal term is not expected to be smooth everywhere. The new European Parliament, the Hungarian presidency and important elections abroad, in particular the US presidential election, will ensure that those interested in politics will not be bored in the second half of the year.
One month after the 2024 municipal and European Parliament elections, the Republikon Institute conducted a party preference survey among 1,000 people, the results of which are presented in the analysis below.
• In post-election surveys, respondents often gravitate towards the party that won the election, and it is typical that parties that did well in the election also tend to gain in the surveys. This is known as "pulling for the winner". The winner of the June 2024 election is basically Fidesz-KDNP, as they send the most MEPs to the European Parliament and lead countless municipalities, despite the party alliance's decline in popularity over the past two years. After the 2022 parliamentary elections, the governing parties continued to hold their own in the polls until their popularity started to decline a few months later. At the moment, however, it does not seem clear to voters who the real winner of the 2024 double election will be, and the draw to the winner cannot be established for Fidesz-KDNP. Compared to the nearly 45 percent EP election turnout, 41 percent of respondents would currently vote for Fidesz-KDNP, 31 percent of the total population. Not that the governing parties have made a surplus, they have even seen a slight drop in support.
• The TISZA party did very well in the election, with their EP list receiving nearly 30% of the vote, and they have also made a minimal surplus in the last month, with 31% of party voters currently voting for the party and 23% of the total population. This surplus of only 1.5 percentage points compared to the election result cannot be called a pulling for the winner, but the fact is that the TISZA party and Péter Magyar, coming from nowhere, have had the biggest relative success in this election.
• Mi Hazánk managed to win an EP seat on an independent list, receiving almost 7% of the vote on 9 June. Currently, 5 percent of party voters would vote for the party, two percentage points below its EP performance, but still within the parliamentary threshold. 4 percent of the total population would vote for Mi Hazánk.
• The DK-MSZP-Párbeszéd alliance won 8 percent of the vote in the election, after a drop in support in the months before the election. The agreement between the three parties was basically also for 2026, but the future of the alliance in this form has been called into question in recent weeks, with politicians from the participating parties rethinking their 2026 plans in the light of the election results. Therefore, in this research, the three parties were measured separately. DK currently has 7 percent of the party voters and 5 percent of the total population, and would enter the parliament, MSZP has 3 percent of the party voters and 2 percent of the total population, and the support for Párbeszéd is below 1 percent. This means a total of 10 percent of party voters and 7 percent of the total population for the three parties, which is slightly higher than the EP result, i.e. if they were to run separately, more people would vote for the three parties together than for the three parties as a whole, but only DK would gain a seat.
• The MKKP typically does better in opinion polls than in elections, and this was the case again. The EP list of the Kutya Party got 3,6 percent in the election, while 6 percent of current respondents say they would vote for the MKKP, which is 4 percent of the total population. Although the MKKP did not make it to the EP, they won the mayor and the board of the 12th district, their supported mayoral candidate won the ninth district and they also made it to the capital's assembly, making them successful in the election compared to their previous position.
• Momentum received slightly more votes in the EP election than the Kutya Party, but overall they did poorly in the election, as the current poll shows. 4 percent of party voters and 3 percent of the total population would vote for the party, roughly in line with their election results. Momentum was the quickest to react to the election result, with Anna Donáth and the presidency resigning and the electorate choosing Márton Tompos as party president. The party's quick drawing of conclusions could put it ahead of the game in developing its 2026 strategy, and their consistency could bring them voter sympathy in the future.
• Of the micro-parties running in the election, Jobbik and MMN managed to achieve 1% support among party voters in the new survey, but 0% support among the total population. Micro-parties are difficult to measure because of their size, so it is not worth distinguishing between parties with 1 and 0 percent. LMP was completely annihilated after the election, it must have been a blow to the party to be associated with Fidesz, especially after Alexandra Szentkirályi's withdrawal. Vona Gábor's 2RK party and MEMO are also at 0%.
• The Nép Pártján and the Szocialisták és Demokraták did not run in the elections, the former because it could not gather the necessary recommendations and the latter because it withdrew. The Nép Pártján stands at 0-0 percent, while the Szocialisták és Demokraták have the votes of 1-1% of the total population and party voters, in line with their last result before the election.
• The share of undecideds is 26 percent.
The full researche is available here.
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