GOP Committing Suicide By Ignoring 'Winning' Issue'? -Polls Show Americans Overwhelmingly Disagree With Top Leadership

Garth Kant / WND

WASHINGTON – The consensus of the political elite is that opposition to immigration, both legal and illegal, is a losing issue for Republicans in 2016 because it would cost them votes.

Many GOP analysts believe 2016 candidates need to support immigration to get crucial Hispanic votes.

But evidence shows opposition to immigration may be a winning issue for the GOP.

In fact, it might even help rebuild the Reagan coalition.

That’s because research and polling have shown the negative effects and unpopularity of increased immigration among all races, including Hispanics, and among people in every income level but the very top:

• Union members

• Blue-collar workers

• White-collar workers

• Small business owners

• Business executives

• Minorities

“This is a winning issue,” former U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., asserted to WND.

“Working Americans want to see us hit the pause button on immigration, as we did from the 1920s for decades, as America sought to assimilate decades of immigration, and that was without a welfare state. Stand up for the American worker, wages and jobs, prioritizing our people first. That’s a winning issue every time.”

And the polls bear out her claims.

In fact, polls show it is such a winning issue, it may be hard to fathom why the GOP has not seized upon opposition to increased immigration as one of its top priorities.

• A Reuters poll found Americans, by an almost 3 to 1 margin, wish to see immigration reduced, not increased; 45 percent want to see a reduction, 17 percent want to see an increase and 38 percent think it should stay the same.

• 63 percent said immigrants are a burden on the economy.

• 70 percent believed illegal immigration threatens traditional U.S. beliefs and customs.

• Gallup found 60 percent are dissatisfied with the level of immigration into the country today. That was an increase of six percentage points from 2014.

• A Pew poll showed 69 percent want to restrict and control immigration rates. That included 72 percent of whites, 66 percent of blacks, and, significantly, 59 percent of Hispanics.

• Princeton Survey Research Associates found 61 percent want to restrict the number of highly skilled foreign workers entering the country.

• And, despite the constant refrain from big business that it hires immigrants because there are jobs “Americans won’t do,” the Polling Company found overwhelming support for raising wages rather than filling jobs by recruiting foreigners, by a margin of 75 percent to 8 percent.

• That overwhelming support was found among Hispanics, African-Americans, Republicans and Democrats.

When asked, “If U.S. businesses have trouble finding workers, what should happen?” respondents were given two choices:

Those who agreed with “They should raise wages and improve working conditions to attract Americans”:

• 86 percent of blacks

• 71 percent of Hispanics

• 73 percent of whites

• 74 percent of Republicans

• 79 percent of Democrats

• 74 percent of Independents

Those who agreed with “More immigrant workers should be allowed into the country to fill these jobs”:

• 3 percent of blacks

• 11 percent of Hispanics

• 8 percent of whites

• 6 percent of Republicans

• 8 percent of Democrats

• 8 percent of Independents

But raising wages and improving working conditions to attract Americans to fill jobs is not what is happening.

According to Bureau of Labor statistics, almost all of the new jobs created in the U.S. economy from 2000 to 2014 went to foreign-born workers.

And U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said he knows why.

Writing in the New York Times in response to an editorial, Sessions asked, “Why would many of the largest business groups in the United States spend millions lobbying for the admission of more foreign workers if such policies did not cut labor costs?”

Read more at WND:

http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/gop-committing-suicide-by-ignoring-winning-issue/