Brexit vote hardly a harbinger of US presidential election

The politics behind the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union sound awfully familiar to the politics that have propelled Donald Trump to the Republican presidential nomination.

[...] before saying the victory by the "leave" side is a harbinger of a Trump victory on Election Day in the United States, it's wise to consider the many differences between the two allied nations with historic ties like few others.

The "leave" vote was widely seen as a backlash against a recent influx of legal immigrants to the U.K. In the U.S. race, Trump dominated the Republican presidential field after he pledged to build a wall on America's southern border as a way to reduce illegal immigration.

The 2001 adoption of rules allowing free migration between EU member countries triggered an influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe into Britain, nearly doubling the number of foreign-born people living in the U.K.

The much greater racial and ethnic diversity in the United States is a reflection of its immigration history, along with the legacy of slavery that saw millions of blacks brought forcibly from Africa.

Minority voters historically lean overwhelmingly Democratic in presidential elections, a trend that strongly favors Trump's White House rival, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Republicans in U.S. general elections also tend to fare better in rural areas and smaller cities and towns, while Democrats find many of their voters in America's urban centers.

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who has worked in both countries, said the U.K. lacks the large suburbs that are critical contested areas in U.S. presidential races.

The Brexit vote did not have a candidate," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, even if it was driven by "the same forces that drove Donald Trump to the hostile takeover of the Republican Party.