A Conservative British prime minister sets the date for a long-awaited vote in the early summer and the United States follows with a momentous presidential election a few months later. It happened in 2016, when Britons voted for Brexit and Americans elected Donald Trump, and now it’s happening again.
Political soothsayers might be tempted to study the results of Britain’s July 4 general election for clues about how the United States might vote on Nov. 5. After all, in 2016, the country’s shock vote to leave the European Union came to be seen as a canary in the coal mine for Trump’s surprise victory later that year.
Yet this time, past may not be prologue. British voters appear poised to elect the opposition Labour Party, possibly by a landslide margin, over the beleaguered Conservatives, while in the United States, a Democratic president, Joe Biden, is in a dogfight with Trump and his Republican supporters.