Here’s what going all-in on the wrong horse gets you

| 9:09 am EDT September 21, 2024
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I think we all understand the racist, disgusting, dangerous, and shameful nature of Donald Trump’s ongoing rhetoric about immigrants and the border. It’s a major concern and we need to be talking about it more in general. But when it comes to figuring out who’s winning and losing in politics, and what is and isn’t working and why, sometimes you have to temporarily set aside the right and wrong of it – which I’m going to briefly do in this article.

From a purely analytical standpoint, it’s accurate to say that Trump has made immigration his main focus. It’s the issue he emphasizes, the most often and the most hyperbolically, by far. It’s arguably the only issue he’s still touching on. Observers on all sides would likely agree that immigrants are Trump’s primary issue.

Yet for all of Trump’s attempts at tying himself to the issue, a new poll from the AP says that Trump is only five points ahead of Kamala Harris when it comes to “who would do a better job handling immigration.” It’s shameful that Trump is ahead of Harris at all on this issue, and that’s a whole other commentary. But the reality is that these numbers are very bad for Trump. When you go all-in on an issue, some dummies in the middle are going to lazily assume that you’re better on that issue simply because you’re talking about it more. Yet Trump is still only ahead on immigration by five points.

For contrast, this same new AP poll says that Kamala Harris is ahead of Trump on abortion by 28 points. That’s what the numbers look like when you go all-in on an issue and it works. Put another way: imagine if Harris were only polling five points ahead of Trump on abortion. Think about what a disaster that would be for Harris. That’s what a disaster Trump’s five point lead on immigration is for him.

Of course that immigration number has the potential to change. Kamala Harris and the Democrats have been heavily publicizing the fact that Trump personally killed the bipartisan immigration deal in Congress, and they still have another six weeks to try to drive that point home to voters in the middle, who often don’t start paying attention to the issues until much closer to election day.

But even if these immigration polling numbers don’t shift, they’re already disastrous for Trump. He’s gone all-in on the immigration issue, and he’s taken such an unpopular position in such an unappealing way, he’s not getting any headway from it. Trump’s position on immigrants and the border isn’t just racist and disgusting, it’s also a losing strategy for him.