Trump’s attacks on immigrants have backfired as for the first time ever more Americans favor increasing immigration than favor decreasing it.
According to a new Gallup Poll:
Thirty-four percent of Americans, up from 27% a year ago, would prefer to see immigration to the U.S. increased. This is the highest support for expanding immigration Gallup has found in its trend since 1965. Meanwhile, the percentage favoring decreased immigration has fallen to a new low of 28%, while 36% think it should stay at the present level.
This marks the first time in Gallup’s trend that the percentage wanting increased immigration has exceeded the percentage who want decreased immigration.
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Support for increased immigration is at historic highs this year among both Democrats and political independents. Republicans’ views on increasing immigration have not changed much over the past decade.
In the short term, Trump’s appeals to racism and nativism are backfiring on him and the Republican Party as a political strategy. The Gallup Poll is more circumstantial evidence that there aren’t enough white, mostly male conservative voters in the country to make the extremist right-wing positions of Donald Trump popular.
Instead of expanding his electoral coalition, Trump is narrowing it with immigration policies that aren’t popular outside of his base.
The long term view is that the United States is demographically changing. Positions that were popular in decades past are falling by the wayside as America is becoming a more diverse nation.
Increasingly, Americans want more immigration, not less, which places Trump on the wrong side of the issue as voters head to the polls in the fall.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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