The survey was conducted over 15 different countries. Euro poll: Romney tanking abroad

He speaks French and visited Europe this summer, but a new poll Wednesday shows most people across the pond don’t know who Mitt Romney is—and those who do, don’t think very highly of him.

That’s the assessment of a survey by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The “Transatlantic Trends” poll is the 11th annual comprehensive study of U.S. and European public opinion offered by the fund.


One key takeaway: It’s a good thing for Romney that he’s not running for office in Europe.

( Also on POLITICO: So — what should Romney do?)

According to the poll, 38 percent of respondents in the European Union said they did not know whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of Romney, or refused to respond on that subject. Of the European respondents who were familiar with Romney, 39 percent viewed him unfavorably, while just 23 percent had a positive take on the candidate, according to the survey.

“On Romney himself, I think a lot of Europeans have the same kinds of questions and reservations a lot of Americans have,” said Constanze Stelzenmueller, the survey project leader, who works for the German Marshall Fund out of Berlin.

Among Americans—and potential Romney voters—surveyed by the fund, the GOP nominee did somewhat better, with 44 percent of respondents reporting a favorable view, and 49 percent saying they viewed him negatively.

Stelzenmueller said Europeans questioned Romney’s authenticity and whether he was really tuned in to average Americans.

“Is it a rich white guy who’s out of touch even with conservative poorer constituents or with the conservative constituents that are not white? That’s one point, the rich, white, out-of-touch” candidate, she said. “Second, is this a guy who flip-flopped on policy issues? If you want to put it under one header, it’s a question about his authenticity, what does this man really stand for?”

The survey of people over the age of 18 and from 15 different countries was conducted between June 2 and June 27 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points. It was also conducted before Romney went on an international tour earlier this summer, with swings through London, Israel and Poland.

That timing could explain, in part, the degree to which he was an unknown quantity in the survey. Sixty-six percent of people surveyed in Poland, for example, said they didn’t know—or declined to answer—whether they viewed Romney favorably. But the timing of the trip doesn’t explain away all of Romney’s negative numbers, Stelzenmueller said. While on the Continent, he got slammed by the British press for a number of gaffes, including a major one concerning the London Olympics and whether England was prepared for the event.

“The tour wasn’t met with a great deal of positive comment in the European media,” she said.”This kind of tour, very few people actually get to see someone on tour. It was very different from what Obama did in ‘08. He spoke at the Tiergarten and 200,000 people came to listen to him. Romney just doesn’t draw that kind of crowd.”

Obama’s favorability numbers in Europe, though not at sky-high 2008 levels, are still at a level most politicians can only dream of: 82 percent of Europeans surveyed by the fund said they held a favorable view of the president, while 11 percent did not. If Europeans were voting in the U.S. presidential election, 75 percent would support Obama, according to the survey, while 8 percent would back Romney.

The country-by-country breakdown shows more dramatic numbers: While Romney enjoyed the most support in Poland, with 16 percent of respondents saying they would support his presidential bid, he would earn only 2 percent of the French vote, despite having close ties to the country, having spent time there while on a church mission.

“Obama has a great deal of support, almost more as a person than for his policies,” Stelzenmueller said, adding, “Despite the fact that people have realized he’s not the Dalai Lama…Still, in many people’s minds, he’s the anti-Bush, A. Two, he’s the first American president in living memory to have an unusually global background—a Kenyan father, white mother and Indonesian background makes people assume, rightly or wrongly, that the man has more empathy with the rest of the world.”