BUDAPEST, Hungary — The leaders of over a dozen European far-right parties gathered in Hungary’s capital on Monday in a show of support for Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a nationalist figure beloved by U.S. and European conservatives whose performance in a pivotal election in April could set the tone for the movement’s future.

Orbán, who retook power in Hungary in 2010, has long been seen as a key figure in the global far right, well before U.S. President Donald Trump entered the 2016 presidential race.

The Hungarian leader’s political successes — four straight election victories, his broad takeover of Hungarian government institutions, media and academia, and his emphasis on family values — led many in the U.S. and Europe to see him as a shining example of far-right dominance.

But three weeks before Hungarians go to the polls, most surveys show Orbán is lagging behind a center-right challenger — a sign that his 16-year reign, and his influence over the conservative movement, could be drawing to a close.

Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, said that while Orbán has both “gained a huge amount of power in Europe” and become a darling of Trump’s MAGA movement, he has a lot at stake in the upcoming election.

“Hungary is this kind of proof of concept that the MAGA kind of politics can work,” Scheppele said. “If Orbán loses, then it loses some of that luster.”

The gathering in Budapest on Monday was an assembly of Patriots for Europe, a group set up in 2024 by Orbán and his far-right allies.

It is the third-largest group within the European Parliament. Its member parties, from 13 EU countries, share a strong opposition to immigration, a preference for national sovereignty over European integration, and adherence to conservative social values.

At the gathering were figures such as France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands. One by one, each of the 13 speakers took the stage to praise Orbán and urge Hungarians to vote for him and his Fidesz party at the April 12 election.

Le Pen, who is challenging a March 2025 verdict that found her guilty of misusing European Parliament funds, said Orbán had stood strong on issues like “immigration, identity and sovereignty.” She said Hungary had become “an emblem of the resistance of a proud and sovereign people to oppression.”

“On April 12, you will send a new message of strength and determination to tired old technocrats in Brussels,” she told the crowd.

The Patriots group has curried favor with Trump and his MAGA movement, and have rallied under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again.” Orbán has long predicted a far-right nationalist takeover in Europe, and portrayed the Patriots as the vehicle for achieving that aim.

At the assembly in Budapest, Orbán said the Patriots “are talking openly about wanting to take control of the European Union. We want to occupy and transform the center of Brussels.”

Scheppele, the Princeton professor, said Orbán has been key to some of the European far-right’s success since he’s been able to use the power of the Hungarian state and its financial resources to support their aims.

“Hungary has been really important because it’s been governed for 16 years by somebody trying to build this movement, and that means that it’s kind of a safe haven,” she said.

Orbán has expanded his influence beyond Europe’s borders. He and Trump have long been mutual fans, and have exchanged a steady stream of public compliments and backing for one another’s political campaigns.

In one sign of Orbán’s continued sway among U.S. conservatives, Budapest on Saturday hosted the fifth Hungarian iteration of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). There, Orbán said the West was undergoing “the greatest political realignment of the past hundred years.”

“The epicenter of this realignment, its center of power, is the United States, and its forward base in Europe is Hungary,” he said.

In a video message to CPAC, Trump endorsed Orbán’s run for reelection, and praised his defense of “your borders, your culture, your heritage, your sovereignty, and your values.”

There have been striking parallels between what Orbán accomplished in Hungary and what Trump’s supporters hoped the president’s second term could usher in the United States, Scheppele said.

“A lot of the inspiration for the way that MAGA launched itself and developed a kind of political program to consolidate power very quickly was modeled on Orbán,” she said. “These are really interlocking networks and I think that the (Hungarian) election therefore looms very large in the MAGA political imagination.”

Orbán’s political troubles — spurred on by a chronically stagnant economy, crumbling social services and increasingly salient allegations of corruption — have coincided with struggles for Trump’s movement.

As the Hungarian election approaches and the U.S. president risks losing one of his most public and stalwart international fans, Trump himself is reeling from falling poll numbers amid the Iran war and an immigration crackdown whose popularity has been rapidly slipping.

His Republican Party is bracing for significant losses in November’s midterm elections.

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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed from Denver, Colorado.