Politico has come under fire after its “poll of polls” for Hungary briefly showed the governing Fidesz–KDNP alliance leading ahead of the country’s spring 2026 parliamentary elections—before the figures were subsequently changed to place the Europhile Tisza Party in front.
The change happened after Balázs Orbán, political adviser to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in charge of Fidesz’s election campaign, published a detailed analysis on Sunday, November 23rd, citing Politico’s aggregated polling numbers.
In his post, he said the data demonstrated that “the patriotic governing parties, Fidesz–KDNP, hold a substantial advantage, while opposition figure Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party have visibly stalled.”
He argued that diplomatic gains, large-scale mobilisation efforts, and missteps by the opposition had put the governing coalition “firmly on track to defeat Brussels’ candidate in next spring’s parliamentary elections.”
However, within a day, Politico’s index no longer showed Fidesz–KDNP in the lead. In a follow-up post on Monday, November 24th, Balázs Orbán accused the outlet of manipulating its methodology after his analysis drew attention to the original figures.
He said the “pro-war Brussels elite’s in-house outlet suddenly rewrote its numbers and deleted that lead retroactively,” claiming that Politico had removed “every poll that didn’t align with their preferred narrative.” He described the alteration as “blatant data tampering.”
