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Democrats got some very bad news last week in the form of the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris poll. In it—for the first time in the poll’s history—Americans ranked immigration as their top policy concern, overtaking even inflation. Adding insult to injury, only 35 percent of respondents approve of President Joe Biden’s handling of the issue.
Since then, a swing state poll conducted by Morning Consult and a general election one done by NBC News gave former President Donald Trump the overwhelming advantage on the issue by 22 percent and 35 percent, respectively. This should come as a shock to exactly no one who has been paying attention.
Back in August 2022, I wrote a column that did not make a lot of Democrats in Washington happy. In it, I pointed out that President Biden’s unilateral decision to reverse some of Trump’s border policies, including his “remain in Mexico” decree, while morally admirable, amounted to political and governmental malpractice. I took this stance, not because I supported Trump’s positions then or now, but because Biden made the move so ham-handedly that even Mr. Magoo could see the disaster coming a mile away.