President Donald Trump may have inadvertently handed Democrats an opening on one of the signature issues that helped propel him back to the White House: immigration.
That’s according to a new memo obtained exclusively by The Bulwark from the Democratic-aligned group Winning Jobs Narrative Action, which found that two immigration messages tested with voters each boosted support for Democrats by about 2 percentage points.
“They think it’s extreme. They don’t want to see masked police taking people in the streets and killing American citizens.” Steve Pierce, executive director of WJN Action, told The Bulwark about working-class voters.
“They’re not in favor of that,” he added.
But outrage alone won’t be enough, Pierce warned.
“The one thing the research said was we have to have a proactive commonsense way forward,” Pierce told The Bulwark. “For working-class people, for an immigration skeptic, the extreme stuff pushes them towards us, but we have to offer an alternative.”
The memo argues Democrats should focus on immigrants’ economic importance to American workers and communities rather than simply condemning Trump’s crackdown.
That message, the memo says, should emphasize “immigrants’ contributions and economic interdependence,” and demonstrate how immigrant labor is “essential to the functioning of labor jobs services, and community life,” The Bulwark reported Friday.
Two of the strongest messages that emerged in the memo emphasized that immigrants pay taxes while billionaires grow wealthier under Trump and how cuts to food and health care assistance compare with increased spending on ICE, the report said.
Pierce concluded that Democrats should not simply try to sound tougher than Republicans on immigration.
“People who care about that will vote for the Republican,” he said, because Republicans “have established bona fides and you’re Johnny-come-lately.”
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