Majority Of Voters Support Obama Immigration Policy Shift

A new Bloomberg poll finds widespread public support for the immigration policy changes announced by President Obama on Friday:

President Barack Obama is winning the opening round in the battle over immigration, according to a Bloomberg poll released today, putting Republicans on the defensive with his decision to end the deportations of some illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children,

Sixty-four percent of likely voters surveyed after Obama’s June 15 announcement said they agreed with the policy, while 30 percent said they disagreed. Independents backed the decision by better than a two-to-one margin.

(…)

The decision left Republicans struggling to respond, trapped between alienating their political base and sending a negative signal to the Hispanic community and independent voters. A majority — 56 percent — of likely Republican voters opposed the decision, while almost nine in 10, or 86 percent, of Democrats supported it. Sixty-six percent of independents backed the policy change, while 26 percent disagreed.

Along with yesterday’s poll of Latino voters, this is the reason why you’re seeing the Republicans play this one close to the vest.

FILED UNDER: Borders and Immigration, Public Opinion Polls, Race and Politics, US Politics, ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tsar Nicholas says:

    What were the odds that this wouldn’t be the polling headline this week?

    In any case, the deportation moratorium makes a ton of sense and even a legitimate poll from a neutral polling service I’m sure would reflect that to be Zombieland’s actual opinion, although obviously not by such lockstep margins as those insinuated by Bloomberg’s agenda item. The unilateral, extra-statutory work visas pose serious problems, however, legal and practical, although for obvious reasons that part of the story is not being featured by the mass media.

    In the final analysis I suspect this won’t be anywhere near the game changer on which Team Obama apparently has placed its hopes. Immigration is a hot button issue in California and Texas. Neither state, however, is politically competitive. Immigration is a hot button issue in Florida, but that’s a completely different demographic from the likes of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. Immigration is not a hot button issue anywhere in the Rust Belt, and it’s looking more and more likely that the Rust Belt will decide the election.

  2. Stan says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: “… it’s looking more and more likely that the Rust Belt will decide the election.”

    Not if Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico all vote Democratic. And I don’t see any sure bets for Romney in the industrial midwest except for Indiana.

  3. al-Ameda says:

    Could this be a case where some people said they supported the immigration policy change because it portrayed them in a positive light?

    I can hardly believe that only 30% disagree with Obama on this.

  4. Gulliver says:

    66% of people polled support an completely unauthorized, totally invalid, and unconstitutional power-grab by the Executive Branch of this administration. Modern constitutional scholars and media mouths of the “living document” stripe must be very proud of the profound (or perhaps I should say profane) effect that misinformation has had when it comes to the average Americans knowledge about how the our form of government is structured.

    To the liberal left and uninformed libertarians, consensus outweighs rule of law – even if the consensus has to be manufactured through a false narrative.