Welcome to the online version of From the Political Bureauan evening newsletter featuring the latest reporting and analysis from the NBC News Politics team from the campaign trail, the White House and Capitol Hill.
In today’s edition, deputy politics editor Adam Wollner looks at two immigration-related movements — one in Washington, DC, and one in Arizona — highlight the importance of this issue ahead of the 2024 election. Additionally, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki explains how the changing demographics of Donald Trump’s base could impact his advantage in the Electoral College.
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Two immigration movements underline the potential of the problem for 2024
By Adam Wolner
The politically charged battle over the US southern border was back in the spotlight on Tuesday, with Democrats in Washington trying to turn the tide on an issue they have long been vulnerable to and Republicans in a key battleground state hoping there to further benefit from it.
President Joe Biden, which has faced scathing criticism over the influx of migrants at the border, signed a long-awaited executive order that will temporarily halt asylum applications as the number of border crossings increases, NBC News’ Gabe Gutierrez and Monica Alba report. Since the average number of daily encounters has already exceeded the 2,500 threshold, the closure would take effect immediately.
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For Biden, the move marks a clear shift to the right on immigration: The restrictions are reminiscent of those that then-President Donald Trump tried to implement in 2018 but were blocked by the courts.
More than 2,000 miles west, Republican lawmakers in Arizona acted to put the border issue directly to voters this fall, aiming to shore up their base in the critical swing state.
The state Legislature, which is closely controlled by Republicans, passed a bill to include an immigration-related measure on the November ballot that would specifically give state and local law enforcement the ability to detain undocumented border crossers detain and deport, despite court rulings that power belongs to the federal government, reports Alex Tabet of NBC News.
The twin events underscore the issue’s potency for voters months after Election Day — and how Democrats are operating from a disadvantage.
When voters were asked in a national NBC News poll in April what issue was the most important issue facing the country, immigration and the border came in second (22%), behind inflation and the cost of living (23%). . Additionally, 20% said they felt so strongly about immigration that they would vote exclusively for or against a candidate based on it, second only to protecting democracy (28%).
And a whopping 69% of voters disapproved of Biden’s handling of border security, the low point of his presidency as he narrowly trailed Trump in the head-to-head results.
Even against this backdrop, moves by Biden and Arizona Republicans to strengthen their position on the issue still carry risks. The president’s executive order failed to get much credit from Republicans, who called it “too little too late” while the liberal wing of the Democratic Party criticized it.
And Arizona Democrats warned that the ballot measure could backfire on the Republican Party, comparing it to a strident 2010 state law that gave law enforcement officials the authority to arrest individuals suspected of being undocumented, sparking a national outcry caused.
Trump’s shifting demographic support could dilute his lead in the Electoral College
By Steve Kornacki
The past two elections have been marked by a pronounced Electoral College advantage for Trump, allowing him to decisively lose the national popular vote both times, with the race for 270 votes hanging on a razor’s edge.
If a similar gap opens in November, current polls showing a near tie would actually mean Trump is in a very strong position against Biden. But if you look at those polls, you’ll see that his Electoral College lead will erode significantly this time around, even as his popular vote improves.
This has to do with the changing demographics of Trump’s support. Polls consistently show him gaining ground among non-white voters, even as his support among white voters remains largely unchanged from 2020.
The current poll numbers reflect an average derived from the cross-tabulation of all major surveys conducted since April. Individually, these are small subsamples with high margins of error, so take this with a grain of salt. But the consistency of similar findings across multiple polls strongly suggests that there is real movement.
The $64,000 question is whether this new Trump support will materialize on Election Day — and there’s reason to wonder whether it will. But if it does, it will obviously be most evident in states with demographically diverse populations.
To see what this could mean for this election, let’s look back at the previous one. In 2020, Biden achieved a sizable margin of 7,060,401 over Trump in the national popular vote. Much of it came as a result of landslides in giant blue states. Biden’s 29-point victory in California alone produced a margin of 5,103,821 votes, while his 23-point victory in New York was good for a margin of 1,993,597 votes. That’s a total popular vote margin of 7,097,599 from just two states.
In addition to being blue bastions, California and New York are also two of the most diverse states in the country. In other words, if current polls bear this out, these are states where Trump could cut heavily into Biden’s vote margins.
Consider a recent poll from Siena College in New York. It found Biden ahead of Trump, but only by a 9-point margin, 47-38%, and almost entirely due to non-white voters. According to the 2020 exit poll, Trump received support from only 6% of Black New Yorkers; in the Siena poll, that number was 18%. Likewise, his Latino support rose 9 points.
You can see where this is going. It’s not that Biden is at risk of losing New York, but a drop in his margin of victory would impact the popular vote. For example, suppose Biden won New York in 2020 by just twelve points. That would have given him almost a million fewer votes, without losing a single electoral vote. A similar shift in California, where half the electorate is non-white, would have shaved several million more votes from Biden’s popular vote lead. Lower margins in other large, diverse blue states like Illinois and New Jersey would have cut even deeper.
This is a recipe for a tight national popular vote in November, with Trump perhaps even winning – exactly what the polls now show.
But it does not automatically follow that his position in the Electoral College would improve much. Meaningful non-white gains would certainly make Trump the favorite to topple Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. If you add that to the states he won in 2020, he comes to 268 electoral votes, just below the magic number. But from there, he would probably still have to flip Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, states where white voters dominate and Trump’s demographic growth will count much less.
Put it all together and there may not be much left of the Electoral College advantage that Trump has enjoyed the last two times.
That’s all from The Politics Desk for now. If you have any feedback – like it or not – please email us at politicsnieuwsbrief@nbcuni.com
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
