2016 Trump looks prophetic on the topics driving 2024’s election

A seismic shift in opinion is occurring among the electorate with just months until Election Day. While issues fluctuate in prominence from election cycle to cycle, pollsters are observing a sustained hardening of views among voters on two prominent 2024 election topics: illegal immigration and crime. Today, this means support for mass deportations of illegal immigrants, and when asked about the country’s criminal justice system, voters say it now encourages crime rather than deters it. The quick evolution of these issues is proof of an embrace of a more populist approach and reflects the broader political reorientation occurring among the major political parties. It is estimated that 3.2 million people, about the population of Arkansas, illegally crossed the U.S. border in 2023. Just five years prior, under President Donald Trump, that number was approximately 1.1 million. At the time, nearly 6 in 10 people opposed the idea of deporting illegal immigrants, as did many Republicans in competitive races for fear of being labeled as political extremists. Of the three methods of how to deal with illegal entrants in the United States, the preferred option was to enact reforms to provide an eventual path to citizenship and allow them to stay. This was chosen over allowing them to stay with no option of citizenship or requiring them to leave the country. Today is a completely different story, and it shows why the Biden administration’s govern-by-crisis approach has pushed voters closer to Trump. A plurality (47%) of battleground voters now support deporting illegal entrants, and another 1 in 5 favor completely freezing immigration until the border crisis is resolved. That’s 70% who want to halt immigration and/or deport those who enter illegally. Even 52% of independent voters and 47% of suburban voters support mass deportations. The fractures are evident in the Democratic coalition as well. Over a third of Hispanics and President Joe Biden’s 2020 supporters think the government should enforce its current immigration laws and should “be allowed to deport those who enter illegally.” On crime, voters’ views of the criminal justice system have also been sharply affected by the “defund the police” movement coupled with highly visible failures to prosecute violent criminals, many of whom have also turned out to be illegal immigrants. This is further evidenced by three out of four voters who say the system is not strict enough on property crime or violent crime. It’s worth noting that as of March, over 40% of voters said it is the policies of the Democratic Party that are to blame for rising crime across the nation, compared to less than half who blame Republicans. More troubling is the existential tipping point. Voters not only question the criminal justice system’s core function, but a majority also believe the system encourages property crime, while only 28% say it deters property crime. These numbers are nearly identical for violent crime. The axiom of “you’re either stopping it or sanctioning it” seems to hold true in the minds of voters. They have clearly made this mental leap about the future of public safety in America, making the immediate electoral consequences obvious. Suddenly, the 2016 version of Trump looks more like a visionary on these two issues, and they’re resonating with voters. CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER Whether the data evoke hope or fear about your political party’s prospects in November, they shouldn’t obscure the more salient point: People now believe the criminal justice system is more likely to contribute to them becoming victims of crime than to protect them from it, and they are increasingly connecting it to the lawlessness on the southern border. The erosion of voters’ trust and confidence in the institutions charged with keeping them safe has hardened the electorate to embrace more hard-line approaches deemed political suicide in the pre-Trump era, and it has also pushed swing voters toward the GOP. Brock McCleary is a pollster and vice president at Cygnal, a GOP polling firm.