Harris Aims to Close Immigration Polling Gap With Visit to Douglas, Arizona

The Kamala Harris campaign on Friday said it believes it has a winning message on immigration and border security, with the vice president visiting the Southwest border in Arizona to try to undercut Donald Trump’s leading numbers on the key election issue.
The Democratic presidential nominee has been strongly critical of Trump’s plans for mass deportation of immigrants, as well as the language he has used when speaking about them. During her address in Douglas, Arizona, on Friday, Harris promised to take a tougher stance on border security, reiterating her promise to reintroduce the bipartisan border bill in Congress, which she has pledged to sign if elected to the Oval Office.
“The United States is a sovereign nation, and I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them, and I take that responsibility very seriously,” Harris said during her address Friday.
Harris also homed in on Trump’s efforts to block a bipartisan border security bill, which Republicans in the Senate struck down in February. The vice president highlighted ways that the bill would have boosted resources for border agents and law enforcement, including paying for inspection machines to detect fentanyl coming across the border.
“It was the strongest border security bill we have seen in decades,” Harris said of the failed measure. “It was endorsed by the Border Patrol union, and it should be in effect today, producing results in real time, right now for our country.”
“But Donald Trump tanked it … because you see, he prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” the vice president added.
The issue of immigration has remained one of Harris’ weak points heading toward November, with voters indicating that they have more faith in Trump to address their concerns. In a poll released earlier this week by CNN and SSRS, 50 percent of the 2,074 registered voters surveyed said they trust Trump for the job on immigration, while 34 percent said the same for Harris.
That gap is especially present in Arizona, where Harris campaigned on Friday. In a Fox News poll released on Thursday, 56 percent of respondents said they trust the former president to do a better job on border security, while 41 percent felt the same way about the vice president.
Harris has made some improvements on immigration since launching her campaign in July, in part due to the Biden administration’s stricter asylum policies enacted in June that have resulted in a steady fall in illegal border crossings. According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, encounters at ports of entry have dropped by more than 50 percent from June to September.
Polling from the Pew Research Center released Friday found that Democratic and Republican voters are divided over which policies they favor regarding immigration. Republicans strongly backed Trump on his plans to deliver mass deportations (88 percent) and improve border security (96 percent). For Democrats, those numbers were 27 percent and 80 percent.
In the six other policy areas, including diversifying the U.S. population, giving undocumented spouses a route to citizenship and admitting highly skilled workers, more Democrats than Republicans were supportive.
Harris on Friday said that Trump has focused on “rhetoric” in lieu of devising policy proposals when speaking about immigration, telling supporters, “Let’s not permit scapegoating instead of solutions.”
“As your president, I will protect our nation’s sovereignty, secure our border and work to fix our broken, broken system of immigration,” Harris said. “And I will partner with Democrats, Republicans and independents to do it.”
Brad Jones, political science professor at the University of California, Davis, told Newsweek on Friday that “Both parties, historically, have not been well suited to handle crises at the border.”
“Part of this is because both parties ceaselessly stress and pursue restrictionist and heavy enforcement policies,” Jones added. “Neither has done a good job of realistically engaging the issue of immigration. To do so would require consideration of actually why there is a crisis in the first place.”
Melissa Morales, president and founder of Somos PAC, said in a statement Friday that the “economy and immigration are important issues that can move voters on the margins just enough to make a difference.”
“Vice President Harris has advocated for a balanced approach to address our broken immigration system, one that includes keeping families together, expanding legal pathways to citizenship and doesn’t threaten mass deportations and historic separations of families,” Morales said.
Ahead of Harris’ visit to the border, Eric Ruark, director of research and sustainability at NumbersUSA, told Newsweek that poll numbers show a different view.
“Voters trust Trump over Harris on immigration by 10 points, according to September polling from ABC/Ipsos,” Ruark said. “Harris is clearly trying to convince voters she somehow opposes the very policies her administration put in place.”