Democrat immigration policy will mean they will continue to lose electoral college

Henry Olsen:
In their drive to resist President Trump, Democrats so far have put a lot of political eggs into one basket: immigration. Their strident defense of immigrants past, present and future certainly satisfies the base -- but it’s a strategic mistake that can only lead to electoral disappointment.

Let’s recall why Trump won in November. He is the first president since 1876 to lose the popular vote by more than 2% and still win an electoral college majority. He did so by winning five swing states – Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin – with less than 50% of the vote. In each case, he attracted large numbers of whites without a college degree who had voted for President Obama twice. Meanwhile, many Republicans who had voted for Sen. John McCain and former Gov. Mitt Romney threw their votes away on write-ins or third-party candidates rather than vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Democrats want to win again, they must do one of two things: Attract back the Obama-Trump voter or win over the Romney-non-Trump voter. Their protestations against border security and the travel ban are not likely to do either.

Surveys show that Obama-Trump blue-collar voters like Trump’s anti-immigration stance. These voters are likely to have felt competition from immigrants legal and illegal, and they want that competition to stop. Even though many of these voters agree with Democrats on traditional economic issues like taxes and entitlement spending, their primary concern now is to protect their livelihoods and standard of living by reducing competition from foreigners living at home and abroad.
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For several years Republicans convinced themselves they had to vote for comprehensive immigration reform to remain viable.  Trump proved them wrong and he is also proving the democrats wrong.  Every time Congress tried to make the immigration laws easier on those here illegally there was a general uprising of votes against the move.  Trump seems t be one of the few who caught on to what they were telling us.

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