Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) admitted on Fox News Sunday night that the Republican Party was “underwater” with Americans on the issue of immigration – once one of the party’s strongest issues – but pivoted to blame Democrats for the GOP’s poor polling performance.
“How can we get the numbers switched on immigration?” asked Fox News host Trey Gowdy, a former Republican lawmaker himself. “Trump closed the border, and yet we’re underwater on that issue!”
The leader of the Republican Party, President Donald Trump, has seen his support on immigration tank among voters, particularly among independent voters. According to an NBC News poll from last month, 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, a dramatic increase from the 49% who disapproved last June.
While the drop in support for the president on immigration has coincided with his administration’s aggressive and deadly immigration enforcement operations, Ernst instead moved to blame her Democratic colleagues.
“We are underwater on that issue, but we have to come together – both Democrats and Republicans – and find a way forward on this,” Ernst said.
“So much can be done on this if only Democrats will want to come to the table, but they’ve demonstrated – whether it’s DHS or anything else – that they just simply despise the president so much they don’t want to do the right thing for our country.”
Trump’s plummeting support on immigration was even reflected in a batch of private GOP polling data obtained by Axios in January, which revealed that 60% of independent voters disapproved of Trump’s immigration policy, polling that was conducted before the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
More than 328,000 migrants have been arrested during the second Trump administration, more than 73% of whom have no criminal record, a stark contrast to Trump’s pledge to target only the “worst of the worst.”
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