Donald Trump Is Making Europe Liberal Again

… So if you’re keeping score at home, right-wing nationalist parties have had disappointing results in Austria, the Netherlands, France and the U.K., and they appear poised for one in Germany, although there’s a long way to go there. I haven’t cherry-picked these outcomes; these are the the major elections in Western Europe this year. …

Despite the differences in electoral systems from country to country — and the quirky nature of some of the contests, such as in France — it’s been a remarkably consistent pattern. The nationalist party fades as the election heats up and it begins to receive more scrutiny. Then it further underperforms its polls on election day, sometimes by several percentage points.

While there’s no smoking gun to attribute this shift to Trump, there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence. CONT.

Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight