With the crisis at the southern border still ongoing, fewer than a third of voters support President Biden’s resolution to the immigration issue, well below the number of voters who trust former President Trump on key election issues, according to a new poll released Tuesday.
The CNN/SSRS poll, conducted after last week’s presidential debate, found Trump leading Biden by six points overall, and three-quarters of voters said Democrats would be more likely to retain the presidency in 2024 if another person became the top candidate.
However, when asked about the issue of immigration, whether Biden or Trump would be better able to handle the issue as president, only 28% of voters supported Biden, while 50% supported Trump, a significant difference, and 21% answered “neither.”
Trump repeatedly slams Biden for border crisis, turning America into a ‘rat den’: ‘They’re killing our people’
On February 23, 2024, migrants who crossed the Mexican border near Jacumba Hot Springs in San Diego, California, arrive at a makeshift camp. (Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images)
Polls also show that immigration is a top issue for many voters, ranking third on the list of priorities behind protecting the economy and democracy, and ahead of abortion, health care, climate change and foreign policy.
The poll was conducted online and by telephone from June 28-30, with a representative sample of 1,274 respondents.
The poll came after a tough debate for Biden that raised questions among some Democrats about whether he should withdraw his candidacy, but which also featured a repeated focus on the border crisis, now in its fourth year.
“They’re killing our people in New York, they’re killing our people in California, they’re killing our people in every state in this union, because we don’t have a border anymore. Every state is a border now,” Trump said, “and because of his ridiculous, insane, very stupid policies, people are coming in and killing our people at levels we’ve never seen before.”
Republicans have blamed the crisis on Biden administration policies, but the administration says it needs more funding and reforms from Congress to fix a “broken” system. It also points to recent declines in the number of asylum seekers after Biden took executive action to limit some asylum claims.
Blue states deploy agents to border with startling warning to migrants
Biden fired back, accusing Trump of obstructing bipartisan legislation and pointing to changes he has made from brutal Trump-era policies.
“In addition, we [Trump] When he was president, he took babies away from their mothers, put them in cages, and quarantined families. That’s not the way to do things.
“What I’ve done since I changed the law is better than what he did when he left office,” he said.
Fox News’ Remy Numa contributed to this report.
