Republican strategists agree with President Obama: The surge of immigrant children at the border this summer changed the politics of immigration dramatically.
Heading into the midterm elections, the national mood on immigration began to change this spring in response to media coverage of the thousands of unaccompanied minors from Central America who were flooding the border.
By the time House Republicans passed legislation to address the crisis and Congress adjourned for the August recess, immigration had become a problem for Democrats on the November ballot.
That’s why Obama reversed course on a plan to use executive action to allow more undocumented immigrants to stay in the country.
“It would have ensured a rout,” a Republican strategist with House and Senate clients told the Washington Examiner. “They are leaving the center wide open for us.”
In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Obama discussed why he moved away from his earlier promise to act in September: “The truth of the matter is — is that the politics did shift midsummer because of that problem.”
Obama went on to say that his decision was not political, but Senate Democrats had been urging him to delay any executive action on immigration until after the elections. Democrats, under threat in handful of red states, are in danger of losing their six-seat Senate majority.
The question now is whether Obama’s delay will help vulnerable Democratic incumbents and challengers locked in tough congressional races. Republicans argue that it won’t because the president has made clear he’s sticking with the policy.
Obama’s declaration could hurt Democrats running competitive Senate races in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina, and possibly hurt them in states like Iowa and Michigan. Republicans contend that immigration has developed into a political challenge for Democratic House candidates as well in some swing districts.
“This won’t let the Democrats in those districts and states off of the hook,” one senior Republican operative said, of Obama’s delay. “In some ways, you could argue that having to answer for the unknown could be worse for the Democrats than having to defend the actual policies.”
In fact, the line of attack favored by leading Republicans in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s Saturday announcement was not a critique of “executive amnesty,” but rather a hit on the motivation behind the delay.
“What’s so cynical about today’s immigration announcement is that the president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law — he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement.
As an issue, immigration generally works better for Democrats, particularly in presidential elections. In 2012, Obama garnered more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote. The Republicans’ resistance to legalizing undocumented immigrants has helped swing most Hispanic voters into the Democratic camp.
That’s why Republicans were on edge earlier this year when Obama vowed to legalize a large swatch of illegal immigrants through a constitutionally questionable executive order. They worried it could shift the debate from Obama’s unpopular leadership and boost Hispanic turnout in the midterm elections.
But the president had second thoughts — even though some political observers had speculated, and some Republicans had worried that restive Tea Partiers in the House and Senate might be willing to shut down the government in an attempt to block his executive action. Such a move was unlikely, but it could have theoretically altered the midterm playing field in the Democrats’ favor.
Immigration isn’t necessarily registering as a major voter concern in national polls. In last month’s Battleground survey conducted jointly by Republican firm The Tarrance Group and the Democratic firm Lake Research Partners, “immigration issues” garnered only 3.8 percent when respondents were asked to name the one or two issues that have led them to believe the nation is on “the wrong track.”
But in individual races — particularly in southern Senate battlegrounds that feature fewer minority voters, it’s an issue that has the capacity to move voters. In races where immigration registers with voters, this is true both as a matter of blowback over Obama’s planned executive action and in how it adds to the electorate’s broad disapproval with how he is handling his job.
That might be true on the left as well, with proponents of legalization expressing deep disappointment with Obama for delaying action.
“The data show that the immigration issue is increasingly relevant to this year’s campaigns in the minds of voters. We can surmise that this is rooted in the crisis at the border,” said a Republican pollster, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly. “The effect has been increasing support for tougher border security but also a desire to see reform that addresses the full scope of problems with a broken system.”
