Swing-voting moderates are rallying to President Donald Trump as Democrats continue their desperate opposition to the enforcement of the nation’s popular immigration laws.
“The voters in the middle that we need to win on immigration are being turned off by the Democrats’ radicalism in attempting to stop the deportations of gang members, drug dealers, and human traffickers,” said a tweet from author Jeremy Carl. “Trump’s immigration policy [among reachable swing voters] is more popular than ever,” he added.
The data was revealed by the polling firm Echelon Insights, which showed 62 percent of swing-voting independents back Trump’s policy, up from 52 percent in January. Opposition among swing voters plummeted from 41 percent to 29 percent. When the rise and fall are combined, they mark a 22-point shift toward Trump’s pro-enforcement, pro-American views.
The gain is likely driven by the Democrats’ rising radicalism, such as their insistence that Trump return a deported suspected MS-13 gangster from El Salvador back to Maryland.
The shift among moderates helps to explain why Trump’s ratings are so high, despite the hostile coverage from establishment media outlets.
For example, a CBS poll of 2,365 adults revealed 56 percent approve of Trump’s “program to find and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.” Ninety percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents approve, while just 22 percent of Democrats approve, according to the survey, which was conducted April 23-25. The poll asked about illegal migrants, not just about illegal migrants who committed crimes.
But many Americans hold conflicting views on politics. That is especially true in migration, wherein many Americans both want to be seen as liking migrants but also want to deport the illegal migrants. So many Americans tell pollsters that they want to see that migrants have committed additional crimes before agreeing they should be deported.
The public’s multi-year shift against migration was also outlined by a new poll of 1,200 adults in Texas, released April 29 by the Texas Lyceum. The poll reported a 50-point shift against migration between 2017 and 2025:
… equal shares of Texans, 32%, expressed the opinion that immigration helps the U.S. more than it hurts it and that immigration hurts the U.S. more than it helps. These results … remain significantly different from when the question was first asked in 2016 and 2017 when more than half of Texans said that immigration helps more than it hurts (54% in 2016; 62% in 2017).
The Texas Lyceum poll also showed plurality support for reduced legal migration: “nearly equal shares of Texans said decreased immigration would make life better (33%) or said it would make no difference (30%), with nearly a quarter (24%) saying it would make life worse (12% didn’t have a response).”
This shift in attitudes is tied to economics, said the poll organizers: “It always gets back to kitchen table issues,” said Frank Ward, the chair of this year’s Texas Lyceum poll:
Texans care deeply about how the economy is affecting their families and their futures … And while it is clear that immigration and border security concerns remain at the forefront for many Texans, those policy matters are also being seen through the lens of the economic impact.
The poll also showed that Republicans were more willing to protect ordinary Americans from being replaced on the job by migrants:
Among Democrats, 80% said that undocumented immigrants fill jobs that Americans don’t want, while among Republicans, views were split, with a majority, 54%, saying that these are jobs that Americans would like to have, while 46% said that these are jobs Americans don’t want.
Read the full article here