SOUTH BEND — Three major elections have happened or are still happening in 2026 in Brazil, the United States and Hungary.
During the third Kellogg Institute Keough School of Global Affairs Global Democracy Conference, a researcher, an analyst and a practitioner each discussed their respective country’s upcoming election, or in Hungary’s case, the April 12 transfer of power from autocracy to democracy.
“I’m used to losing,” said Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana. “I’m used to finding those partial victories in all of the fights.
“But what keeps me going is that every so often we do have a huge victory.”
Bolsonaro II
The performance of the Brazilian government has been “relatively good” when looked at from a macroeconomics level, according to Juan Albarracín, assistant professor of political science at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Brazil is in an unusual position of accountability, as former President Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving 27 years in prison for attempting a coup in 2022.
Bolsonaro and members of his government and military “not only denied the results of the election but actually actively conspired to have President-elect (Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) and the head of the electoral court assassinated,” Albarracín said.
But even as a prisoner, people who wanted to stand for Bolsonaro in the election “had a weird form of primary” and auditioned for him, Albarracín said. Of Bolsonaro’s children that auditioned, his son Sen. Falvio Bolsonaro appears more “palatable.” While his other son Eduardo Bolsonaro is currently seeking asylum in the United States for political persecution.
Albarracín explained that Flavio Bolsonaro is a form of his father while not being strongly attached and still maintaining the potential to attract a liberal electorate.
Brazil’s election is Sunday, Oct. 4. Flavio Bolsonaro is running against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula and running for his fourth term.
“Their messaging is really not ‘We’re saving democracy,” Albarracín said. “They realize that doesn’t really work, so what they’ve been working on is nationalism.
“Trump was really good for Lula because he really let him activate the nationalist part in Brazil and that helped him,” Albarracín said.
While one corrupt president was held accountable, the coalition he left behind remains, Albarracín said.
Voters in the United States
In the United States, Vaughn believes voters are starting to fall away from President Donald Trump, but that his “cult of personality” is so prominent that what draws voters to him isn’t policy or results, rather his “larger than life personality.”
A big problem for Americans is their beliefs are often constantly reinforced by the information they access, said Vaughn, describing Americans’ information ecosystem as “we are siloed in.”
“I think it has been unfortunately a painfully slow process for a majority of Americans to realize what they voted for,” Vaughn said. “But I think that reality is absolutely set to settle in.”
Her belief is that Americans have strange interactions with democracy in that it’s believed voting is the “end all be all.” The reality is, Vaughn said, Indiana has ranked among the lowest in voter turnout for decades and across the country, when half of registered voters show up to the polls, it’s celebrated.
“But that’s just the bare minimum one can do,” Vaughn said. “It’s about being engaged. It’s about being an informed voter. It’s about sharing information with others.”
In years past, political campaigns have tried to mobilize new voters to get more people engaged, but Vaughn said it’s become more about getting the right people engaged.
There are a variety of factors that can contribute to engaging voters, but voting laws such as Indiana’s removal of student ID voting sets up barriers that can deter a new voter from showing up at the polls, she said.
“We have one of the most stringent voter ID laws in the country,” Vaughn said. “There has never been one case of a college student misusing that student ID to vote and yet that law was still passes because the concern is that young voters don’t find the Republican message very appealing.
“So, let’s make it harder for them to vote.”
The nationwide midterm general election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Hungary’s newly elected democracy
In April, Hungary’s autocratic leader, Viktor Orban, lost power to conservative Peter Magyar after 16 years in office in what Daniel Hegedüs senior, a visiting fellow with German Marshall Fund of the United States, called “not a miracle.” Autocracies and electoral operational regimes fall when faced with domestic crisis, he said.
Under Orban’s leadership, there was an economic struggle barring the country from having hardly any growth over the last five to six years, said Hegedüs, adding Hungarians felt this not only in their wallets but in the quality of public services like healthcare and education.
“What’s even more astonishing is that this country, which 20 years ago used to have the second-highest GDP per capita in the central European Region, became actually a black light and has the second-lowest GDP per capita, only second to Bulgaria,” Hegedüs said.
He believes the legitimacy crisis among the middle class was one of the most important factors.
In 2024, after multiple child abuse claims were reported with involvement of regime politicians, Orban’s claims of a child- and family-friendly conservative government was “heavily shaken.”
“It was a sort of moral breakdown that opened a lot of space for the opposition,” Hegedüs said. “And in parallel, this internal crisis of the regime, there is an astonishing renewal in the opposition side.”
The conversation of the panel and the conference focused largely on the idea of an internal enemy.
“In a truly established autocracy, which uses physical violence,” Hegedüs said, “one can always find enemies.”
Email Tribune staff writer Juliane Balog at jbalog@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame democracy conference discusses 3 big 2026 global elections
Reporting by Juliane Balog , South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
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