The Morning Consult survey published Tuesday shows that congressional Democrats have slashed Republicans’ advantage on the key issue of immigration by 6 percentage points since last week.
Democrats now trail Republicans on the issue by a 50 to 43 percent margin with 8 percent of voters saying they don’t know or have no opinion. Of the more than 11,000 likely voters surveyed, 68 percent say immigration is a very important issue.
And it’s an issue at the forefront of the presidential race, along with a host of key U.S. Senate and House races that are up for grabs in November.
Former President Donald Trump and other members of the GOP have repeatedly made claims that there has been a wave of migrant crime, due to current policies at the United States-Mexico border.
een from an aerial view, Texas National Guard troops stop immigrants trying to pass through razor wire after crossing the border into El Paso, Texas from El Paso, Texas. Those who managed to get through the wire were then allowed to proceed for further processing by U.S. Border Patrol agents.
AFP/Getty Images
On paper, the U.S. has some of the strictest border controls in the world, but illegal crossings and asylum claims at the southwest border did surge after the COVID-19 pandemic. They have since eased, following measures introduced by President Joe Biden in June.
While there have been several reports of crimes carried out by illegal immigrants, who are often detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), experts have found that American citizens are more likely to commit violent crimes than immigrants.
Recently, widely debunked accusations that Haitian migrants were eating cats and dogs have put the small town of Springfield, Ohio, at the forefront of the immigration debate.
The rumor was picked up by Ohio Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, who amplified the claims on social media.
Trump himself then started talking about migrants “eating the pets” during his presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris last Tuesday, before repeating the line in speeches the rest of the week and promising to begin his mass-deportation plan in Springfield, along with Aurora, Colorado, where Venezuelan gang members were causing problems for locals.
Harris has pledged to revive President Joe Biden‘s failed bipartisan border security bill.
“Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades; the border patrol endorsed it,” Harris said.
“But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign,” she said. “So, he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal.”
The legislation stalled in the Senate after Trump ordered allies not to support it.
Newsweek emailed the Democratic and Republican national committees, along with the Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presidential campaigns Tuesday morning for comment.
Congressional Democrats also cut into Republicans’ lead on national security, going from 8 percentage points behind to a 3-point deficit. Republicans now lead on the issue, 48 to 45 percent with 8 percent of voters saying they don’t know or have no opinion. National security is viewed as a very important issue by 72 percent of those surveyed, ranking second only to the economy, which is a very important issue to 79 percent of likely voters.
In addition, the new Morning Consult poll shows that Harris has increased her polling lead over Trump to record highs.
The vice president is now 6 percentage points ahead among likely voters, 51 percent to Trump’s 45 percent. This doubles Harris’ advantage that she held before last week’s presidential debate on ABC.
The polling also showed that Harris had a strong lead with independent voters, with 47 percent saying they were planning to vote for her in November. Forty-one percent said the same about Trump with a further 6 percent undecided about the decision, and another 6 percent voting for a third-party candidate. Independent voters are expected to be key to winning crucial battleground states in November’s election.
According to Newsweek’s polling aggregate, Harris maintains a healthy 3-point lead nationally ahead of Trump, while also leading slightly in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Three recent polls found Trump to be slightly ahead in Arizona, while most recent polls have put Georgia and North Carolina as toss-ups, with many results within the margin of error.
The Morning Consult polling results reflect surveys conducted September 13-15, 2024, among 11,022 likely U.S. voters, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-1 percentage point.
