Ukraine faces decisive months ahead as key allies gear up for crunch elections. While early presidential campaigning in the US and a looming general election in Poland will grab the international headlines, a snap election in Slovakia on 30 September may prove every bit as consequential. 

With Robert Fico — Slovakia’s former prime minister and one of the West’s most outspoken critics of the Ukrainian war effort — poised to win the vote, a change of government in Bratislava could have a profound effect on EU policymaking. Fico has promised that if his party makes it into government “we will not send a single bullet to Ukraine,” proudly proclaiming that “I allow myself to have a different opinion to that of the United States” on the war.  

Fico has also claimed on the campaign trail that “war always comes from the West and peace from the East,” and that “what is happening today is unnecessary killing, it is the emptying of warehouses to force countries to buy more American weapons.” Such statements have resulted in him being blacklisted by Kyiv as a spreader of Russian propaganda.  

Yet the former prime minister spearheads a new brand of Left-wing, anti-American populism that has become a powerful force in Central Europe since the war began. Perceptions that “the Americans occupy us” — as one MP in Fico’s Smer party evocatively put it — are shared with a similar groundswell of anti-Western opinion in the neighbouring Czech Republic.  

Yet Smer has been handed a chance to gain power thanks to the chaos which has engulfed Slovakia’s pro-EU, pro-Western forces. Personal grievances coupled with serious policy errors tore apart a four-party coalition formed after elections in 2020, leaving Fico to capitalise on heightened mistrust in establishment politics. Smer is expected to become the nation’s largest party after this month’s election, with an anticipated 20% of the vote.  

Whatever the specific makeup of the new government, if Smer is the largest party it will likely pursue a foreign policy similar to that of Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary. A halt to until-now generous Slovak arms shipments to Ukraine is Fico’s central electoral pledge, while the arrival on the scene of another Orbán-style government prepared to obstruct EU aid efforts for Ukraine would create a serious headache. That is particularly the case as Brussels struggles to win support for both short and long-term war funding commitments. 

Victory for Fico would also amplify Orbán’s scepticism about the overall Western narrative on Ukraine — a scepticism which the Hungarian Prime Minister recently conveyed to Western conservatives during an interview with Tucker Carlson. Orbán portrayed Ukraine’s attempts to win back the territories taken by Russia as ultimately hopeless and claimed that Donald Trump’s promise to end the war quickly makes him “the man who can save the Western world”. 

Like Trump in America and Orbán in Europe, Fico is hated with a passion by establishment forces. But in Slovakia, the pro-Western establishment itself has become so mistrusted that power may soon pass to a man intent on shattering what’s left of European unity on Ukraine. 

This week, the Wall Street Journal published a fascinating analysis detailing how a contingent of wealthy donors is fueling the rise of far-Left candidates in the Democratic Party. The report details two crops of donors, some newer and others more established. But both appear to share the same fundamental goal: electing more progressives and shifting the Democratic Party’s center of gravity Leftward.

It’s worth pointing out that this is not necessarily a new development. Contrary to conventional wisdom — that most big-dollar donors are primarily motivated by financial self-interest — many of these Democratic donors actually hold views that are consistent with or even to the Left of the median Democratic voter, including on economic matters.

What is new, however, is the momentum and success these donors have achieved this cycle. For starters, many of these donors backed Zohran Mamdani in his bid for New York City mayor. His success has convinced more donors to join the fray.

The obvious problem with these donors’ growing power is that they are perpetuating a longstanding problem in Democratic politics: boosting candidates whose views and priorities often leave the party wildly out of step with the majority of the country.

This was one of the biggest takeaways from the 2024 presidential election. Polling shows that a growing share of voters believe Democrats moved too far Left. One post-election study found that the median American positioned themselves closer to both Trump and the Republican Party than Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party.

Though some Democrats understood this perception was a liability for their party, others saw Trump’s return as reason to double down on their progressive views. Throughout the 2026 primary season, Left-wing candidates, many backed by this class of donors, have had immense success. The Journal reports that 45 such candidates won their races for Congress, while just seven lost. Moreover, unlike in general elections, incumbents typically have a high success rate in primaries, suggesting that many of these new members could be around for a while.

As these progressive donors gain power and their preferred candidates become more firmly entrenched in the Democratic Party, voters’ perceptions that the party is too far Left will only become more entrenched.

Then there’s the question of priorities. Another major lesson of the 2024 election was that many voters felt the Democrats were out of touch with their concerns. Multiple post-election surveys found that voters believed the party cared more about contentious social and cultural issues than about the problems affecting their everyday lives. This perception was not entirely misplaced: the party had indeed begun to devote more attention to the former.

Yet this is unlikely to change if progressive donors have their way. Many have contributed large sums to American Priorities, an entity supporting candidates who oppose Israel. One such candidate is soon-to-be congresswoman Darializa Avila Chevalier, who famously attended an anti-Israel rally on 8 October, 2023, one day after the Hamas terror attacks (and who holds numerous views unlikely to be palatable to even the median Democrat, let alone American).

For now, most of these donors still wield relatively little influence compared with other major players. But the Left’s growing influence in the Democratic Party is already evident, and its momentum is now being buoyed with serious financial support. If this is a sign of things to come, Democrats’ likely gains this November could prove short-lived.

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Michael Baharaeen is editor-in-chief at The Long View substack.

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