Scots are the biggest fans of Donald Trump in western Europe, poll finds
by Andrew Quinn, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/authors/andrew-quinn/ · Daily RecordGet the latest Daily Record breaking news on WhatsApp
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Scots are the biggest fans of Donald Trump in western Europe, a poll has suggested. A quarter of adults in Scotland hope that the controversial Republican nominee wins the US presidential election on Tuesday.
This is much higher than the rest of the UK on 16 per cent. Some 17 per cent want him to win in Spain, 15 per cent in France, 14 per cent in Germany, 13 per cent in Sweden and 7 per cent in Denmark.
Scotland has higher support for Trump than Italy - which is on 24 per cent - despite the country having a right-wing government. More than half of Scots backed Kamala Harris, according to the Norstat poll reported by The Times. Italy was the only European country which had lower backing for the Democrat candidate.
Supporters of centre-right and right-wing parties were much more likely to back Trump. Some 50 per cent of Tories backed him, 42 per cent of Brexiteers and 70 per cent of Reform voters also backed him.
But he still had decent backing among other parties, with 17 per cent of SNP and 20 per cent of Labour voters wanting him to win. Trump owns Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire and two courses in Aberdeenshire, while his mother was from the Isle of Lewis.
Mark McGeoghegan, a polling and politics expert at the University of Glasgow, told The Times: "For decades, we have stuck to the myth that we are more left-wing and socially liberal than our neighbours, a story that, for the pro-independence wing of Scottish politics, feeds a sense that our different politics justifies independence. But it is just that, a story.
"The sense that Scotland is more immune to Trump's brand of right-wing populism than other parts of the UK is rooted in the fact that Thatcherism and de-industrialisation rendered the Conservatives toxic north of the border and that the SNP chose to target Labour voters. The legacy is a party system that is more left-leaning than most, but not an electorate that is."
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McGeoghegan said there was as much support for right-wing populism in Scotland as other European countries: "It makes sense that Scots attracted to independence, a form of outsider politics that promises to solve tough problems with a simple solution, might also be attracted to Trump.
"While not surprising, this should be concerning. Trump's politics are not just right-wing populist but authoritarian. We should all be deeply worried that he could take a quarter of Scots."
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