Nearly two-thirds of voters say they hear more from Republicans on immigration, while just 16 percent say they hear more from Democrats, according to a new poll from Vera Action and The Immigration Hub.
The poll, conducted by PerryUndem, echoed other polls in which more voters said they believed Republicans would do a better job on immigration.
Of those surveyed in the survey, 44 percent said Republicans were better on the issue, 36 percent said Democrats were better, and 20 percent said neither party would do a better job, or both would handle the issue similarly.
According to a polling memo reviewed by The Hill, these “both” or “neither” voters were more likely to align with Democratic messages than Republican messages on the issue.
But few voters are listening to Democratic messages.
Case in point is the 73 percent of respondents who had heard of a link between new migrants and crime, 54 percent of whom said they had heard of the link from Republicans and 11 percent from Democrats.
A new analysis from the Texas Department of Public Safety published Wednesday by the Cato Institute found that immigrants without certain documentation were less likely than native-born citizens to be arrested and convicted of murder between 2013 and 2022.
It is the latest study to suggest that immigrants — documented and undocumented — are less likely to commit crimes and therefore their presence has a downward effect on overall crime rates in the communities where they live.
However, Republicans have successfully highlighted individual cases of crimes committed by immigrants to frame the overall immigration issue.
Immigrant advocates say this is a sign that Democrats are not saying enough about immigration or are not effectively countering the GOP narrative.
The research memo found that voters reacted to a hypothetical Democratic message by criticizing “scare tactics” in Republican messages.
According to the memo, messages humanizing migrants – “Like most of us, the vast majority of migrant families are responsible people. They are mothers, fathers, children, grandparents who are fleeing from danger. Just like us, they want security, stability and a chance for a better life” – made both conservative and older voters more likely to agree that “migrants are fleeing danger, not causing it”.
The survey memo covered the results of two surveys, both conducted May 10-22 using YouGov. One survey interviewed 1,000 registered voters nationwide and the other 1,904 voters with oversampling of Black, Hispanic and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.
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