Immigration Goes South For Democrats

President Obama’s political campaigns have seemed highly attuned to the shifts in public opinion while his policies (and their implementations, aka Obamacare) have more often than not fallen flat. After a month of White House leaks about an aggressive change in the nation’s deportation laws, Obama’s political team seem to have gotten the memo. Unfortunately for them, they again look confused and politically disingenuous.

Some long-observed facts:

• The surge to the southern border has shifted public opinion pluralities from helping millions of undocumented citizens to tighter border enforcement.
• The latest Pew Research poll (9-3-14) shows a ten-point shift from helping people become citizens to border security since early 2013 when the President proposed immigration reform as a top second-term agenda item.

• Some of the most vulnerable politicians to the President’s aggressive policy will be senators in battleground states. For example, New Hampshire, Arkansas and North Carolina where Democrats are already under assault in ads accusing them of being for amnesty.

Gallup reports immigration is a top issue for Republicans (8-22-14) and they shifted much more to border security than the rest of the population (53% in 2014 from 36% in 2013), hence, the special problem in battleground states. Along with endangering vulnerable senate Democrats, the President’s preference for aggressive, non-legislative solutions engenders considerable negative reaction and commentary.

In Colorado, Democrats have tried to use immigration as a part of “my opponent is extreme” theme. As the issue has shifted, that argument has no traction. Politico reported (8-21-14) that immigration is not a major issue even in the highly competitive 6th Congressional District, which has a 20 percent Hispanic population.

“The national narrative’s wrong,” said Floyd Ciruli, an independent pollster here and a longtime observer of Colorado politics.
For most voters, he said, immigration is the sixth or seventh most important issue.

 “It definitely doesn’t show up in any surveys as a big issue for the right or left,” he said. “Obviously, you have segments. But it just is not at the top of mind.” (Jake Sherman, Politico, 8-21-14)