Don’t Tell, But Immigration Helped Republicans on Tuesday



In Gallup’s final poll before the midterm elections, three issues were considered very important to voters – the economy, health care and immigration. President Trump sounded the trumpet on immigration at nearly every campaign stop, while Democrats did everything to avoid talking about it.

Which strategy worked on election night? To be clear, there were losses and victories on all sides of the immigration issue, but the truth lies beyond the headlines.

Open border voices were loudly declaring defeat for President Trump and his immigration agenda.

Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, proclaimed the mid-term elections as “a STUNNING rebuke for the leaders of the hardline, anti-immigrant movement, with their champions losing badly” and “a complete disaster for many of the most critical and long-time leaders of the anti-immigrant movement.”

To back up his claim, Schulte pointed to a “few” key races in which pro-enforcement candidates were defeated on Tuesday. He highlighted the losses of Kansas gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach, Virginia Republican Reps. Dave Brat and Corey Steward and Pennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican challenging popular incumbent Sen. Bob Casey.

He was not alone in asserting those four losses proved his assertions.

In a column entitled, “Harsh Republican Restrictionists Lose Bigly in the Midterms,” Reason reporter Shika Dalmia, also tagged those four as upsets of immigration hardliners. However, no sooner had he tagged their immigration stances for their downfall, he conceded that “Stewart and Barletta never really had a shot.”

Yes, all four have strong immigration enforcement records. No, those records were not responsible for their defeats.

In Virginia’s other race, he was facing a female Democrat – and former CIA agent – who hammered Brat relentlessly on health care, pre-existing conditions and national security and did so in a district with a heavy suburban female vote.

In the end, Democrat Abigail Spanberger won by in a three-way contest by less than two percentage points. In Kansas, Democrat Laura Kelly had the advantage of running in a three-way race and having received multiple endorsements from prominent Republican officials in the state.

The open border caucus, however, do not speak of defeats of Florida’s Carlos Curbelo, New York’s John Faso, Utah’s Mia Love, or Minnesota’s Erik Paulsen – all Republicans who signed the discharge petition to reopen the immigration debate in the House.

At the end of Election Day, the argument that immigration hurts may have been the biggest loser according to analyses of exit poll data.

“Pre-election fears by some Republicans that Trump’s inflammatory immigration message would sink GOP candidates in tight races proved overblown,” reported Politico.

While USA Today noted that it was Latino and Asian immigrants who “helped Trump and the GOP” in the midterms.

“The tough talk didn’t seem to chase away immigrant voters in significant numbers,” noted the paper.

According to CNN exit polls, Democrats garnered approximately 68 percent of the Latino vote, slightly higher than the 66 percent won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Republicans drew 30 percent of their vote — above the 28 percent Trump earned in 2016.

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6 Comments

  1. avatar

    We continue to spend money we do not have lavishing billions in benefits on illegal aliens each year which siphons away money needed for more important priorities such as paying off our debts including the $1 trillion we owe China. The interest payments we pay to China help fund its rapid military buildup.

    At its Zhuhai air and arms show China just unveiled, among other new weapons, a new hypersonic anti-ship missile the CM-401 which is very difficult if not impossible for the US Navy to defend against and is a generational leap ahead of anything the US Navy currently has, and it is a huge deal.

    Trump is the first president to really deal with the rise of China and the first to address the costs of illegal immigration in some time yet a lot of people in this country are more upset by Trump and want him to leave office as soon as possible to be replaced with someone more like Obama who does not do much to thwart the rise of China and who wants to lavish even more money we don’t have on illegal aliens.

    One can only hope the day never comes where a brutal, totalitarian country with 1.4 billion people and an axe to grind over the more than one hundred years of being conquered and humiliated by the foreign Western and Japanese imperialist powers goes on the war path. They are already getting their revenge to some extent on us by shipping illicit fentanyl to the US either directly through the mail or indirectly via Mexico and Mexican drug cartels.

    There are worst things than politically incorrect tweets and comments from Trump. If you are drafted and are on a ship or island in the Pacific there is no safe space to hide in when Chicom hypersonic missiles are raining down on you or Chicom marines with flamethrowers want to incinerate you.

  2. avatar

    Our media is a joke. Almost totally biased and one sided. Republicans are under the microscope while the media ignores everything on the other side. When Dr. Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee against Brett Kavanaugh, the pundits were quick to proclaim her “credible” before she was halfway through her testimony. In fact, she was anything but. The most obvious lie was her constant delaying coming to the hearing for ten days because she claimed to be afraid to fly. Once under oath, and subject to perjury, she admitted she flew all the time.

    She claimed that when she and her husband remodeled their home years ago, she insisted that “a second front door” be added as an additional “escape route” from any attackers. The press never noted it when it was revealed that the remodeling included adding a rental unit and that the second door was a separate entrance REQUIRED by the city. There were numerous instances where she contradicted thing she said only months earlier. Zero response from our ever vigilant press. Maybe Jim Acosta could do some real reporting instead of hogging the floor and grandstanding at every press conference. They need to give him two questions and if he won’t shut up, escort him out.

    Nor has the press noted the extreme leftist tilt of the Democrats. They paid no attention to the fact that the Arizona Democratic candidate for Senate Krysten Senema had answered a question from an American reporter shortly after 9-11 concerning whether he had the right to join the Taliban. Her answer: “Fine, I don’t care if you do that”. She doesn’t care if someone joins an organization dedicated to killing Americans?

    Trump gets trashed every day as a bigot and racist, but the media is silent on the members of the Black Congressional caucus who defend and tolerate Louis Farrakhan, who callsHitler “a great man”. Joy Behar is as clueless as they come, but set a new standard for stupidity yesterday when a guest on the View noted the GOP gaining a couple seats in the Senate. Behar said it was because of “gerrymandering”. ???? Uh, there is nothing to gerrymander. Senate elections cover the entire state, unlike the House. Good grief.

  3. avatar

    REAL “immigrants” – that is, those who have entered in compliance with our immigration laws have NOTHING to fear from ENFORCEMENT of those laws,, UNLESS they’ve committed CRIMES that make them deportable. So, why would they oppose candidates who are “hard line” on the immigration issue? Besides, only CITIZENS – natural-born or naturalized – have the RIGHT to vote, so illegal aliens SHOULD be a non-factor in federal elections.

  4. avatar
    Diana Talmadge on

    President Trump is doing the job we hired him for and that includes keeping our borders
    secure, and giving honest people a chance to apply for citizenship in our country…not just sneak across the border!