Nezopont: Hungarians back relations with US, oppose embassy’s billboard campaign

Altogether 40 percent of the survey’s respondents said they wanted stronger ties between Hungary and the US, while 26 percent favoured maintaining the current level of bilateral relations, according to a summary of the survey’s findings published on Nezopont’s website.

This, however, does not necessarily mean that they agree with the Biden administration, the think-tank said, pointing out that 59 percent of respondents opposed the US embassy’s recently-launched billboard campaign. Nezopont found that 38 percent of opposition voters said they found Washington’s campaign unacceptable.

Fully 16 percent said they favoured looser ties between Hungary and the US.

The survey found that 33 percent of those who support the prime minister and 50 percent of those critical of him wanted to strengthen relations with the US. Meanwhile, 29 percent of the prime minister’s supporters and 23 percent of his critics said they were satisfied with the current state of bilateral ties. Altogether 18 percent of government supporters and 8 percent of opposition sympathisers said Hungary should loosen relations with the US.

While a majority of respondents said they were against the billboard campaign backed by the US embassy, 26 percent said they found it “somewhat acceptable”.

Among those who favour stronger ties with the US, there was an even split of perceptions of the campaign, with 43 percent saying they found it acceptable and the same percentage finding it unacceptable.

Fully 68 percent of those who want to maintain the current level of relations opposed the campaign, while 25 percent found it acceptable.

Altogether 88 percent of those who want to loosen bilateral ties had a negative view of the campaign, and just 8 percent said it was acceptable.

A total of 82 percent of the prime minister’s supporters found the embassy’s campaign unacceptable as against 10 percent of them who said it was acceptable. Altogether 45 percent of opposition supporters said they were in favour of the campaign, while 38 percent were critical of it.

Nezopont conducted its representative survey of 1,000 adults by phone from April 17 to 19.