On February 24, President Trump delivered the annual State of the Union (SOTU) address on Capitol Hill, during which immigration policy figured prominently. Directly thereafter, Harvard/Harris surveyed 1,999 registered voters on a variety of topics, showing the president received a small but significant “SOTU bump” on key issues, notably immigration enforcement — an endeavor a majority of Americans support, but would prefer not to hear about.
The survey was conducted by The Harris Poll and Harris X for the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University between February 25 and 26. The margin of error was +/- 1.99 percentage points — a key fact to keep in mind as I discuss the results.
Trump Approval Generally
Despite having been elected president twice, Donald Trump has never enjoyed widespread popularity in most opinion polls, and this one is more of the same.
According to Harvard/Harris, 46 percent of respondents approve of the president’s performance (28 percent of whom “strongly approve”) while 49 percent of the voters polled disapprove of the job he is doing (39 percent strongly).
The president’s performance held “steady”, as Harvard/Harris put it, compared to January, when he had a 45 percent approval vs. a 51 percent disapproval rating. Fortunately for Trump, however, the “trendline” between those polls is headed in the right direction.
Interestingly, Trump’s latest showing is some mix of “Green Acres” and “Thirtysomething”: His appeal is strongest with urban (51 percent approve/44 percent disapprove) and rural (49 percent approve/47 percent disapprove) voters and among those aged 25 to 34 (47 percent approve/44 percent disapprove) and 35 to 44 (53 percent approve/39 percent disapprove), and is especially pronounced among white voters (51 percent approve/44 percent disapprove).
By comparison, he’s 13 points underwater among suburbanites (40 percent approve compared to 53 percent disapprove) and 31 points in the hole with Black voters (30 percent approve/61 percent disapprove).
Trump Approval on the Issues
At least some of those responses can be explained by Trump’s stance on issues where he polls most strongly: “fighting crime in America’s cities” (51 percent approve); “returning America to its values” (48 percent approve); and “reducing the cost of government” (47 percent approve).
And “immigration”, traditionally one of Trump’s best issues and one that garnered approval from 48 percent of registered voters polled. That’s a two-point increase compared to January’s polling, and as with his overall approval, positive movement for the president.
That said, immigration has receded slightly as an issue compared to previous months’ Harvard/Harris polling.
When respondents were asked what they believed to be “the most important issues facing the country today”, pocketbook issues weighed most heavily on their minds: 34 percent identified “price increases, inflation and affordability” and 28 percent said it was the “economy and jobs”.
Immigration tied with “health care” at 27 percent, down two points from January.
When voters were asked what issue was “most important to” them “personally”, they again heavily mentioned “inflation”, the key concern for 44 percent of those polled, followed by “restoring basic American values of merit and competence” (15 percent) and then immigration (11 percent).
That’s a two-point decline for immigration as a personal issue among American voters compared to January and, as I’ll explain, that’s likely a good thing for the president.
Approval of Trump’s Policies
Respondents were offered a list of 28 key Trump policies — ranging from “lowering prescription drug prices” to “removing information about civil rights, climate change, and controversial aspects of America's history from national parks and historical sites” — and asked whether they approved or disapproved of them.
Not surprisingly, making prescription pharmaceuticals more affordable for the poor and elderly drew widespread support, approved by 80 percent of respondents, but just 32 percent favored the “civil rights” omissions at national parks and other historical sites (Trump’s least-favored policy).
Trump’s second-best stance? “Deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes”, a policy approved by three-quarters (75 percent) of voters polled, including 68 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of Independent voters.
That’s a two-point overall increase compared to January’s polling, a three-point rise among Independents, and a statistically significant eight-point bump among Democrats.
Separately, Harvard/Harris asked respondents whether they favored (or not) Trump’s vow to deport “all immigrants who are here illegally”.
That policy received approval from 57 percent of respondents, including 35 percent of Democrat voters and 56 percent of Independents.
Overall, that’s a five-point rise compared to January, but more importantly a seven-point increase among both the Democrats and Independents polled.
If the percentage of GOP voters who favored “mass deportation” hadn’t fallen one point between January (79 percent) and February (78 percent), the total increase in support would have been greater.
Through the late fall and the early weeks of winter, major outlets carried nightly coverage of both immigration arrests and protests in opposition to ICE and CBP enforcement in Minnesota, but that phenomenon largely abated after Trump dispatched his “Border Czar”, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis in late January to calm the waters.
In that vein, when asked about various institutions (from the “U.S. Military” to “Hamas”), 39 percent of respondents had a favorable view of ICE, while just less than half — 47 percent — viewed the interior enforcement agency unfavorably, an eight-point gap.
While that’s not great news for the thousands of officers performing arrests and deportations daily, ICE is doing much better than it was in January, when fully half (50 percent) of voters had an unfavorable view of the agency and just over a third (34 percent) viewed it favorably, a yawning 16-point chasm.
Lesson to Learn
The conclusion to draw from these various responses is that a majority of American voters favor immigration enforcement targeting some large portion of the unauthorized population — they just don’t want to see or hear much about it. It’s a lesson the Trump administration and DHS leadership should take to heart.