If Europeans had a vote in the US 2016 election they would choose Hillary Clinton by a landslide – and they are terrified of a President Trump
The centre-right in Europe may well be nearer the centre-left in the USA – and even as Europe skews to the left of Britain it's hard to imagine a US president talking up nationalised healthcare with the conviction of David Cameron. Against this background you might think if Europe had a say in the US 2016 election it would overwhelmingly back self-avowed "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders, but the results of new YouGov research across seven countries in Europe reveal a radically different picture.
The latest national figures from YouGov in the US have Hillary Clinton in the lead with 27% saying she is their preferred candidate, while 23% opt for Donald Trump, 19% prefer Bernie Sanders and 9% favour Ted Cruz. As an average of YouGov's polls in Britain, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, however, Hillary Clinton has a huge lead of 32 points over Bernie Sanders (46% to 14%). 6% say they would vote for Donald Trump if they had a vote and he was on the ballot.
Bernie Sanders does best in Norway, a beacon of progressivism to many, where 22% say they would vote for him if they could and he was on the ballot. Hillary Clinton, who may benefit from name recognition, does best in Germany (54%) and Denmark (54%).
Europe is terrified at the prospect of President Donald Trump, the odds of which are now only 3/1 at the bookies. Asked to say how they would feel if Trump were elected in November, the most likely response is fear (46%), followed by disappointment (40%). 27% say they would be sad and the same proportion say they would be angry.
The most likely responses to the thought of President Hillary are relief (40%) and optimism (40%), indicating her support from Europe has as much to do with blocking opposition as endorsement for the candidate herself.
Asked to say which candidates would do best on a number of different fronts, again Hillary comes out as the clear leader in every European country. Unfortunately for Donald Trump, who has framed controversial policies such as temporarily banning Muslims from the US around counter-terrorism, only 12% say his presidency would be best at tackling international terrorism.
Hillary Clinton has the smallest lead over Bernie Sanders on tackling climate change, but even then the lead is 17 points. Hillary's experience in diplomacy has been one of the cornerstones of her campaign, and she has the greatest lead (29 points) on improving US relations with the EU.
Despite the support for Hillary in Europe, the results do not reveal much excitement. As an average of the European countries polled 43% say she would make a good president, while 30% say she would be average and 9% say she would be bad. In Britain only 33% say she would make a good president. Then again, these results are far better than those for Donald Trump – overall 71% of Europeans say he would make a bad president, and every country apart from Britain would rather Ted Cruz won the Republican nomination (in Britain they are tied: 17% for Trump, 17% for Cruz).
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