Will Trump be re-elected? Here's what the world thinks
It’s one of the biggest questions of the year on the global politics stage. Will Donald Trump be re-elected as US President in November?
US foreign policy has been at the forefront of Trump’s presidency as he has renegotiating trade deals, military alliances and even implemented anti-immigration policies and travel bans against nations - heightening tensions internationally. But as we draw closer to the 2020 US Presidential elections, how likely does the world believe he is to triumph?
In a recent Global Advisor survey, Ipsos asked more than 22,500 people across 33 countries whether they think Trump will be re-elected as President. Opinion is mixed, and there is a clear polarisation between countries currently experiencing a wave of nationalist or nativist sentiment. Overall, 44% of the respondents said it is unlikely Trump will be re-elected as President, while just over a third (35%) think it could happen again. People in Turkey (57%), South Korea (56%), Philippines (55%) and Italy and Belgium (53%) were most likely to say Trump would not be re-elected. Those in Hong Kong (54%), Israel (53%), India (48%), US (46%) and Great Britain (42%) were most likely to see him as re-elected.
Chris Jackson, VP of Public Affairs in the US, who specialises in political polling, said that the countries most likely to forecast a Trump victory share the populist wave that Trump is part of, and their leaders have expressed a special affinity for Trump.
Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel has been very positive towards Trump after being very negative towards [Barack] Obama, and Boris Johnson in the UK, of course, was once referred to as the British Trump. I think we see places that have sort of experienced something similar see this as a more realistic or likely outcome versus countries that have had more moderate governments that perhaps don’t quite understand this extent of populist rage and need to completely go outside the established norm for the sake of change.
Kelly Beaver, Public Affairs Managing Director in the UK, agreed:
We shouldn’t underestimate the cultural divisions and strength of populist sentiment still at large in the US, which could play out in favour of Trump again. The public in other countries would not have thought that Boris Johnson’s Conservative government would have achieved such a strong majority, and they underestimated the cultural divisions in the UK - which outside of London favoured Johnson. Similarly, there could be some of that playing out globally with views of Trump.
In the final prediction poll released on the day of the UK’s General Election in December last year, Ipsos forecast that Johnson’s Conservative government would win 44% of the votes. The Conservatives won by 45%.
EVENT: Culture Clash: what to expect from the US Presidential election
The 2020 election in the United States will be a clash of cultures where the deeply committed followers of President Trump will compete against their equally committed opponents. On Thursday 6 February, Darrell Bricker, Global CEO, and Clifford Young, President of Ipsos Public Affairs, will bring their expertise on American public opinion to highlight how the events of the United States are part of a larger global wave of populism and anti-establishment sentiment.
