PTI, Washington :The favorability ratings of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have increased since they clinched the presidential nominations of the respective Republican and Democratic parties, a Gallup survey said on Wednesday.Since clinching nomination in early June, Clinton’s favorable ratings among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have gone up slightly to 71 per cent, compared with 68 per cent in April and May, the survey said.68-year-old Clinton’s image is now partly restored to what it was at the start of the year when 74 per cent of Democrats viewed her favorably.Trump has also maintained higher favorable ratings among Republicans and the party leaders since he emerged as the sole Republican candidate in May compared with earlier in the year.Trump’s favorable ratings among Republicans averages 64 per cent so far in June, the same as in May but higher than the 54 per cent to 56 per cent in the three prior months.His current favorable ratings also exceed the average 61 per cent he earned from this partisan group in January, the survey noted.Clinton, 68, and Trump, 70, have each lost ground over the course of 2016 among independents who lean toward neither party.”Because of this, the candidates’ national favorable ratings have stayed still or declined slightly, despite recent improved ratings from their own partisans,” it said.Clinton’s overall favorable ratings since clinching the nomination have averaged 41 per cent, nearly matching her 40per cent in May but down slightly from 44 per cent in January.Trump’s average 31 per cent thus far in June compares with 32 per cent in May and 34 per cent in January.However, the electoral importance of pure independents will likely be muted as Gallup polling traditionally shows this group to be less engaged in politics and less likely to vote than those who identify with or lean toward one of the two major parties, it said.Gallup is an American research-based, global performance-management consulting company. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company is known for its public opinion polls conducted in several countries.Meanwhile, if US Republican candidate Donald Trump is elected president it would be a dangerous result and “complicate” relations between Europe and the United States, French President Francois Hollande has warned.”Those who say that Donald Trump could not possibly become the next president of the United States are the same ones who thought that Brexit would never be voted in,” Hollande said, referring to last week’s British referendum which backed withdrawal from the European Union.Trump was running on the kind of slogans peddled by the extreme right in France and elsewhere in Europe; fear of the wave of migration, stigmatisation of Islam, questioning representative democracy, denouncing elites, the French leader said in an interview to be published on Thursday in the French financial daily Les Echos.When asked whether a Trump presidency would be a dangerous thing he answered “yes”.Trump’s presence in the White House “would complicate relations between Europe and the United States,” Hollande added.A new opinion poll in the US showed that the race for the White House is too close to call.Respondents to the latest Quinnipiac University national poll put Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton ahead of Trump by just 42 percent to 40 percent, a narrowing from Clinton’s four-point margin in the organisation’s June 1 survey.Trump, the New York celebrity tycoon, has caused alarm in Europe with his abrasive style and pledges to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and build a wall on the border with Mexico.His proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States drew the ire of Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, who called the idea “stupid, divisive and wrong”.Trump has criticised the continent’s leaders as “weak” and accused them of taking inadequate measures to combat terrorism following the Islamist attacks on Brussels in March.Last month French Prime Minister Manuel Valls accused the presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Trump of being a “bad man”.
