Why Trump is losing ground on immigration to Harris

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is losing his edge on immigration to Vice President Kamala Harris following her recent shift toward the middle on the issue and a drop in illegal immigration at the southern border.

In a matter of weeks, Democratic nominee Harris has cut into the former president's lead on border security and immigration, according to recent polls conducted nationwide that surveyed voters on which candidate was better on the issue.

Polling conducted since Harris replaced President Joe Biden a month ago revealed that the candidate whom Republicans have decried as an ineffective "border czar" has the backing of a growing share of voters on an issue that Trump has been most vocal on since 2015.

An ABC News-Washington Post-Ipsos poll published on Aug. 18, before Democrats descended on Chicago for their convention, showed Trump ahead of Harris by 10 points as the candidate to handle the immigration situation at the southern border. Trump was down from his 14-point lead in July.

At her Democratic acceptance speech, Harris made it a point to brand herself as willing to work on a bipartisan level and as a prosecutor, according to Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute think tank in Washington.

"Harris has been very focused on her support for the bipartisan Senate border bill and all that that would encompass. That includes increased resources for enforcement measures, this continued ability to limit asylum when border numbers reach a certain level," said Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst for MPI's U.S. immigration policy program. "She's really talked a lot about, especially focusing on the criminal organization, but in terms of being willing to have this kind of nuanced approach to immigration that I think is really reaching a more centrist audience."

By early September, polling by USA Today-Suffolk showed that Harris had made major gains on Trump, creeping to within 3 points of him as the best candidate on immigration — from Biden's 13-point trailing earlier in the summer.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said the shift is not only based on what Harris has said publicly in recent weeks but is also based on ways that Trump has alienated himself from voters who are concerned about jobs and the economy.

The Harris campaign's approach to winning on immigration was an unusual, yet so far successful, one, according to Krikorian.

"They've kind of repackaged her," said Krikorian, whose organization advocates restricting immigration. "She's kind of running as a challenger instead of as the incumbent. She's an incumbent. She's running for reelection. So that's what's so ludicrous about this effort. And yet, at least to some degree, it's enjoyed so far, a certain amount of success. So, you know, in a sense, whoever is running this campaign is doing a good job of making lemonade out of lemons."

To Harris's benefit, the number of migrants being arrested daily crossing the border has dramatically decreased since peaking in December, according to Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank in Washington.

"Harris’ popularity on this issue is improving because border chaos is diminishing. As a result of falling southwest border encounters, which are now the lowest since 2020 and trending downward, immigration is less politically controversial," Nowrasteh wrote in an email. "The border crisis is passing and, along with it, the perception of chaos that tainted the Biden-Harris administration. She’s reaping the political rewards."

Since winning the nomination in August, Harris has painted herself as a prosecutor that cracked down on crime as the San Francisco district attorney, shifting away publicly from her past as a progressive Democratic California senator and distracting voters from Republicans complaints that she was ineffective as the White House's point person on the illegal immigration crisis from Central America.

Harris's campaign has also walked back her previous opposition to the border wall and suggested in August that she would support some funding despite Biden's canceling congressionally funded contracts upon taking office in 2021.

Trump has made a name for himself as the border security and immigration candidate since first launching his campaign in June 2015. At the time of his campaign announcement, Trump infamously threatened the Mexican cartels and labeled some migrants as serious criminals flowing across the border.

But Krikorian said Trump is not solely anti-illegal immigration despite his focus on that aspect in speeches. Trump is aggressively pro-legal immigration, admitting in June that he would give green cards to any foreign student who attends a U.S. college.

"He is a conventional corporate Republican in the sense that he wants a loose labor market so employers don't have to hustle for workers, but workers have to hustle to find jobs, and that really cuts against the pro-worker message that a lot of Republicans genuinely are pursuing," said Krikorian.

The economy, inflation, and jobs remain at the top of voters' concerns nationwide, outperforming the issue of immigration.

If Trump wants to boost his numbers on immigration, Krikorian suggested focusing on reforming lottery-based immigration into merit-based.

The Trump campaign maintained that not all polling suggested Harris was gaining and that the yearslong record-high influx of illegal immigrants at the southern border was not without lasting effects on Americans, who will remember that on Election Day.

A Fox News poll released in August put Trump up 13 points over Harris, slightly down from his 18-point advantage in May. A Reuters-Ipsos poll in late August revealed Trump was up 9 points over Harris.

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"President Trump is trusted on the issue whether it’s 3 points, 5 points, 15 points," said Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a phone call. "Voters are smart enough to know that [Harris] has overseen the worst immigration crisis in our nation’s history, which has led to death and crime and the crumbling of infrastructure."

Under Biden and Harris, more than 10 million immigrants have been encountered at the nation's border, more than any two-term White House administration.