Two killings by federal agents on the icy streets of Minneapolis have suddenly turned the politics of immigration upside down.
Republicans, led by a president who rose to power with promises to build a Southern border wall and carry out mass deportations, are now trying to dodge an issue that polls had long shown to be a strength for them.
Democrats, who have for years tried to change the political subject to health care or abortion rights, are now racing to talk about immigration and harness their voters’ rage over the fatal shootings in Minnesota.
The shift could be fleeting. American politics has rarely felt so unsettled and unpredictable, with President Trump just as responsive to television coverage as to on-the-ground realities. On Monday, he shook up the leadership of his immigration crackdown in Minnesota and seemed inclined to try to calm tensions, at least for now.
But in the meantime, both parties are adjusting on the fly as a midterm election year they thought would center on the cost of living abruptly seems far more focused on immigration and federal power.
In Illinois and New Mexico, Democratic candidates this week began running advertisements highlighting their opposition to federal immigration operations. Others in Maine and New Jersey have upended their campaign messaging, long directed at high costs, to address their voters’ anger about deportations. The party’s primary candidates for Senate spoke forcefully against Mr. Trump’s immigration policies during recent debates in Texas and Illinois.
Democratic members of Congress including Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Representative Ro Khanna of California have braved snowstorms and subzero temperatures to fly to Minneapolis and meet — and be seen — with activists on the ground. Others have led rallies against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their home states. And Senate Democrats have quickly grown an appetite for again shutting down the federal government over funding for Mr. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE.
Top Republican leaders and many candidates in tough races have struggled for a response to the chaos in Minnesota. Speaker Mike Johnson has still not issued a statement, while Senator John Thune, the majority leader, praised Mr. Trump’s shake-up in Minnesota as a positive step for “turning down the temperature.”
At the same time, a parade of other politicians in the party have expressed concerns about the killings and the aggressiveness of federal immigration authorities.
Chris Madel, a Republican candidate for governor of Minnesota governor, called the federal immigration operation “a disaster” as he dropped out on Monday. Representative Glenn Grothman, from next-door Wisconsin, suggested that the latest shooting by a federal agent was “murder.” Even Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, known for his hard-line immigration approach, suggested that the White House should “recalibrate” its strategy.
“Immigration enforcement used to be a strong point for Republicans,” said Adam Jentleson, the president of the Searchlight Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank, who two weeks ago released a memo warning Democrats to avoid the phrase “Abolish ICE.” “Republicans thought that there was no version of enforcement that people would reject, and they were wrong about that.”
The political risks for Republicans in battleground states and districts have become clear, with polls showing voters souring on Mr. Trump’s immigration tactics. A New York Times/Siena poll released last week — conducted before the latest shooting in Minnesota — showed that while roughly half of voters supported his deportations, a sizable majority believed that ICE had gone too far, including a remarkable 71 percent of politically crucial independent voters.
“Even if the administration is telling the truth, the perception is immediately colored against ICE because of how much fear and anxiety has piled up,” said Preya Samsundar, a Republican strategist in Minneapolis. “If this continues to go on, it could cause some issues with the gains we have been able to make as a party.”
Democrats say their change in focus is being driven by fury from their voters, who want to know what their representatives will do to try to stop Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“In every conversation, it is brought up,” said Tahesha Way, a Democratic former lieutenant governor of New Jersey who is running in a special election to the U.S. House next week. “People not only see what’s going on nationally in Minnesota — they’re living in fear as to what is happening on the ground here in New Jersey.”
The wave of Democratic outrage could force another government shutdown at the end of the week. Key Senate Democrats have promised to oppose bipartisan legislation to fund a broad swath of the government because it includes billions of dollars for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. Several suggested they were open to eventually including such funding, but they demanded more guardrails to “rein in the abuses of ICE,” as Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, put it.
How Americans might respond to another shutdown is one uncertain factor in the ever-changing political calculus. And Republicans have hardly given up their tough-on-immigration stance: In television ads broadcast this year, there have been more than twice as many Republican ads highlighting such positions than Democratic spots criticizing ICE tactics, according to data from AdImpact, a media tracking firm.
Some Democrats warn that voters broadly have not rejected the overall goal of combating illegal immigration that helped twice elect Mr. Trump to the White House.
“This is a topic that Democrats have an imperative to engage on, but they still need to do it the right way,” said Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who worked in 2024 for the campaigns of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Vice President Kamala Harris. “Voters believe a secure border is important and that Trump’s tactics are not doing that.”
While the two killings in Minnesota made the state the focus of the nation’s attention, ICE operations in other states have pushed immigration and deportation issues to the forefront of local politics. Maine’s Senate race, one of the country’s most competitive, and its contest for governor have become dominated by the government’s deportation push in the state.
Even the name of the ICE effort in Maine — Operation Catch of the Day — has infuriated some officials and voters.
“It’s a grotesque name,” said Shenna Bellows, the Maine secretary of state and Democrat who is running for governor. “People are not fish.”
Reid J. Epstein is a Times reporter covering campaigns and elections from Washington.
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