After months of insisting he was dragging his feet, President Joe Biden finally took executive action this week on the border crisis.
It remains to be seen whether his actions will make a difference. Critics say it will be business as usual at the border because the actions won’t make any real difference to stop migrants from entering the U.S. illegally. But CNN data expert Harry Enten said Tuesday that Biden’s
this With just five months until Election Day, the time has finally come to do something.
“Not only is immigration now at the top of voters’ concerns compared to four years ago, but there has been a major shift in who they trust on this issue.”
First, Enten showed that voters consider immigration to be the second most important issue in the election.
This was an important fact to highlight, he explained, because the same issue was ranked as the 15th most important issue in the 2020 election.
“We went from 15th to No. 2,” Enten said, “so to me, what President Biden is doing is not that surprising because immigration is a No. 1 priority for American voters.”
Second, Americans trust Donald Trump to handle immigration issues.
more and more Enten explained that he has more confidence in Biden than he does in trusting him.
Indeed, Enten presented data showing that leading up to the 2020 election, voters trusted Biden more than Trump on how to handle immigration, but that trust has since flipped by a staggering 30 points.
“In June 2020, Biden was only trusted by one percentage point on border security and immigration,” Enten says, “and now look where we are in May 2024. Wow, Donald Trump has made such a big jump. He’s now leading by 27 percentage points on this issue.”
“So not only has immigration risen to the top of voters’ concerns compared to four years ago, but there’s also been a major shift in who they trust on this issue,” he explained.
At that point, CNN host Kate Bolduin called Trump’s comments on immigration “the most extreme and the harshest” and asked Enten to predict a “backlash” against Trump, trying to bait Enten into criticizing Trump.
But Enten was quick to dismiss that idea.
“I think a lot of Democrats are saying, ‘Look at Donald Trump. Look at his so-called anti-immigrant rhetoric. There’s going to be a backlash.’ I’m not sure that’s accurate,” he replied.
To prove his reaction, Enten cited survey data showing that voters born outside the US favored Trump over Biden in the presidential election.
“This is a change from 2020, when voters born outside the United States supported Joe Biden,” he explained, “but this time there is no sign of a backlash.”
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