Shocker: In Red States With Vulnerable Democratic Senators Big Majorities Favor Legal Status for Immigrants

This year’s race for the U.S. Senate will be a hard-fought battle throughout the country.  But a surprising new poll shows that vulnerable Democratic senators may be in better shape than most people expected.  According to Axios, this could be a deciding factor in control of the Senate.

The poll from Axios and Survey Monkey looked at ten states that went for Trump but which have Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018.  In all ten states the great majority of respondents said that undocumented immigrants should be offered a chance to obtain legal status.

In addition the majority of respondents in nine of the ten states are in favor of DACA.  The only state with a majority not supportive of DACA was North Dakota, which has only 3 electoral votes.

Immigration issues are extremely important since Democrats must defend so many vulnerable seats in Trump states in this year’s midterm elections.  They need to pick up two seats to take control of the Senate from the Republicans but most people expect them to lose seats since they have to defend Democratic seats in the 10 states that went for Trump. They easily could lose several seats in these states.

For the majority of voters to support Democrats’ positions on these two immigration issues appears to be an unexpected bright spot for Democrats right now despite President Trump’s bellicose and divisive rhetoric.  He may have a core of support of about 30% but the majority do not support him.

Additional polling done in February by Axios and Survey Monkey was also surprising and good for Democrats:  the majority of Americans support Democrats in their fight to protect Dreamers.  They blame Republicans for not finding a solution to this problem which affects so many young people. In addition, they are against Trump’s position — most think that Trump wants to deport the Dreamers, and the majority of Americans are strongly against that.

Clearly if the majority of voters in these 10 states support both DACA and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, then this could not only help the vulnerable Senate Democrats keep their seats, it could also POSSIBLY result in Democrats taking back control of the Senate.  

This table shows the percentage of poll respondents in each state in favor of undocumented immigrants obtaining legal status:

1. Florida: 72% in favor
2. Pennsylvania: 72% in favor
3. Ohio:  69% in favor
4. Michigan:  71% in favor
5. Wisconsin: 75% in favor
6. Missouri:  67% in favor
7. Indiana:  67% in favor
8. West Virginia: 62% in favor
9. Montana:  63% in favor
10. North Dakota: 60% in favor

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Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.

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