Latest Polling Pours Gasoline on Senate Border Negotiations
Most voters polled didn’t even know how bad things are—and when they did find out, they wanted a change
By Andrew R. Arthur on December 19, 2023
Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies issued its latest poll, this week, conducted by The Harris Poll and Harris X, and it reveals that a solid majority of registered voters want Senate negotiators to stem the tide of illegal migrants entering across the Southwest border—even though most of those polled wildly underestimated the number of migrants entering illegally. When respondents did realize the magnitude of the border surge, 70 percent called for “new, stricter policies to reduce the flow of people across the border”, including 55 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Independents. As those negotiations heat up, this poll simply pours more metaphorical gasoline on the political fire.
That Harvard/Harris poll included 2,034 registered voters, who were surveyed between December 13 and 14.
Biden’s Immigration Approval Plummets
The first key takeaway from that poll is that the president’s approval over his handling of immigration took a big hit in the past month, falling from 46 percent in favor in November to 38 percent in the most recent poll.
Biden has seen a drop in his popularity across the board in the last month, but even then, nowhere has his support dropped so markedly as it has with immigration. Approval of Biden’s handling of the economy, for example, fell just 2 points (from 44 percent to 42 percent), while favorability of the job that he is doing to stimulate jobs fell 3 points, from 50 percent to 47 percent.
The president’s handling of immigration has long been a political liability for Biden and Democrats, and it’s simply getting worse. Part of that, ironically enough, may have to do with the ongoing congressional negotiations, which have brought the crisis at the border to the public’s attention.
https://cis.org/Arthur/Latest-Polling-Pours-Gasoline-Senate-Border-Negotiations
