Still, after the 2014 midterms in November, Republicans and business leaders believed they had found a way to placate voters’ fears and contain the insurgencies, a conclusion that turned out to be far from correct.
“Trump is hitting a message that has been building in the country for some time,” said Greg Mueller, a Republican strategist who advised the conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan when he beat President George Bush in the Republican primary in New Hampshire in 1992. Candidates positioning themselves otherwise in the primary, such as by supporting immigration reform, he added, “may as well be committing political suicide.”
In interviews, some of Mr. Trump’s ardent supporters have frequently mentioned immigration as a reason for supporting him, even echoing those ads from Mr. Brown.
“I’m a Polish immigrant; my parents came over from Poland in the 1930s, and my grandparents,’’ said Carol Le Lacheur, the former daughter-in-law of a local official in Lowell, Mass., just over the border from New Hampshire, who attended a rally of 7,500 people for Mr. Trump. “They taught us to work hard, to be loyal to this country.” Her family, she said, came to the country legally.
Mr. Fehrnstrom, Mr. Brown’s former consultant, called
the Republican Party leaders’ redirection on immigration after the 2012 election a huge miscalculation.
“
They told their candidates to support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants as a way to increase outreach to Hispanics,’’ said Mr. Fehrnstrom, who also advised Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. “And candidates who followed that advice are struggling. Donald Trump went in the opposite direction and he has total command of the 2016 field.”
http://dailyblueplanet.com/2016/02/05/donald-trumps-immigration-message-may-resound-in-new-hampshire/
