Trans-Atlantic Trend? Trump sees UK vote as validation

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump makes a speech at his revamped Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry Scotland Friday June 24, 2016. Trump, in Scotland the day after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, saluted the decision, saying the nation's citizens "took back their country." (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump makes a speech at his revamped Trump Turnberry golf course in Turnberry Scotland Friday June 24, 2016. Trump, in Scotland the day after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, saluted the decision, saying the nation's citizens "took back their country." (Jane Barlow/PA via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Britain's stunning vote to bolt from the European Union sent political tremors across the Atlantic Friday, fueling Donald Trump's confidence that frustrated U.S. voters will back similarly sweeping change and rattling Democrats who are banking on Americans ultimately choosing a more conventional leader in Hillary Clinton.

The British referendum was no exact mirror of the U.S. political landscape. The American electorate is far more diverse, and Trump is deeply unpopular with minority voters, a serious weakness dogging his Republican candidacy. The referendum also centered on a single issue, while the presidential election can be as much a decision about personality and temperament as candidates' policies.

Yet the parallels between the forces that drove the British vote and those at the core of Trump's campaign are striking. Among them: a belief globalization is hurting the working class, and increased immigration is changing the country's character. In both nations, there is strong resentment of political elites who often appear to have little connection to the voters they're supposed to represent.

"I think there are great similarities between what happened here and my campaign," Trump said from Scotland, where he was attending the opening of one of his golf courses. "People want to see borders. They don't necessarily want people pouring into their country that they don't know who they are and where they come from."

Fifty-two percent of British voters moved to withdraw from the now 27-nation European bloc, despite dire warnings from Prime Minister David Cameron and other top officials about calamitous economic consequences. Stock markets around the world plummeted after the outcome was announced, Cameron announced his resignation, and the British pound dropped to its lowest level in 31 years on concerns severing ties will undermine London's position as a global financial center.

In the U.S., Clinton cast the economic uncertainty as a reason America needs "calm, steady, experienced leadership" in the Oval Office - a knock on her often unpredictable and politically inexperienced Republican rival. Clinton aides also highlighted Trump's assertion Friday that a weaker pound would make his Scottish golf course more attractive to visitors.

"Donald Trump actively rooted for this outcome, and he's rooting for the economic turmoil in its wake," said Jake Sullivan, Clinton's senior policy adviser.

Other Democrats, openly anxious, warned the party should not underestimate the willingness of angry American voters to choose a more uncertain path in November and side with Trump.

"It's a timely big splash of cold water the face of Democrats," said Ron Kirk, the former Democratic mayor of Dallas and U.S. trade representative for President Barack Obama.

Democratic operative Lynda Tran said if U.S. voters are indeed seeking a broad political overhaul in November, Clinton will be "at a major disadvantage."

"Having spent the last three decades of her life in public service, in the public eye and being a core part of the policies and the administrations that have brought us to where we are right now, it's very difficult for her to grab the mantle of change," Tran said of the former secretary of state, senator and first lady.