Hindsight shows polls predicting Brexit would fail clearly missed a key group of voters. Now, some say one surprise could trigger another: a Donald Trump presidential win in November.
“I don’t think Brexit itself changes the minds of voters, but it shows there is a potency there – that there is something he is tapping into,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
Trump’s visit to his Scottish golf resort the morning after British voters decided to leave the European Union seemed to be his way of saying ‘I told you so.’ The Republican presidential candidate was in favor of Brexit.
Friday morning, he compared what’s happening in the U.K. to sentiments in the U.S.
“I really do see a parallel between what's happening in the United States and what's happening here. People want to see borders. They don't necessarily want people pouring into their country, that they don't know who they are or where they come from. They have no idea,” Trump said during a press conference.
The Brexit decision did not hinge so much on immigration as economics, according to Whalen.
“Why did brexit prevail in England? Because you had a class of voters, white male British voters who feel economically boxed in, can’t get ahead. Why? Because their political leadership has let them down, because the country has made a lot of bad decisions with regard to trade, with regard to immigration, and Britain has lost its culture as a result,” Whalen said, adding, “That is directly parallel to what is happening in the United States right now in this presidential election.”
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The research fellow says though Trump’s campaign has recently been in the rough, Hillary Clinton should be concerned. A ‘sleeper vote’ in the U.K. proved polls wrong, and political experts say Trump could be in a much better position than some polls suggest.
Clinton, who was on the Bremain side, released a statement on Brexit: “We respect the choice the people of the United Kingdom have made….This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House.”
Continuing to use the word “experienced” in her campaign could be Clinton’s Achilles heel, according to Whalen, who says it shows she is a part of the political establishment.
And if anti-establishment sentiment continues in the United States, the feelings could translate to votes in November.
“If it worked in the UK, it could work in the US,” Whalen said. “And that’s what would concern me if I were the Clinton campaign: the probability of lightening striking twice in one year.”
