Up for re-election next year, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has to contend with a Missouri electorate that polling finds overwhelmingly wants immigration reduced -- just like President Trump who won the state's electoral votes last year.
- Will Sen. McCaskill support the RAISE Act? A survey by Pulse Opinion Research has found that all components of the bill are strongly favored by Missouri's "likely mid-term" voters?
- Or will Sen. McCaskill take the risk of supporting the high-immigration position which Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton espoused last year. Many analysts on the left and right have suggested that her immigration stances -- which were often interpreted as insensitive to American workers -- may have been a key factor in losing swing states like Missourr which cost her the election.
PAST VOTERS FOR SEN. McCASKILL WANT IMMIGRATION CUT BY AT LEAST HALF
In next year's election, Sen. McCaskill will be answering to Missouri voters who polled 63% to 24% in favor of cutting legal immigration from the current one million a year to a half-million or less. That reduction is what would happen under the RAISE Act, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) with Pres. Trump at the White House this summer.
The NumbersUSA-commissioned poll indicated that going against the RAISE Act and significant cuts in legal immigration not only would go against the desires of the overall Missouri electorate but also among Sen. McCaskill's base of voters who have supported him in the past.
Among likely mid-term voters who said they have cast ballots for Sen. McCaskill in the past, 54% said they want legal immigration cut to a half-million or less, while 33% said keep it at a million a year or more.
Of those McCaskill supporters who called for reductions, a third said cut to 500,000, a third said cut to 250,000 and a third answered that they would prefer zero legal immigration.
MISSOURI GROUPS WITH LOTS OF SWING VOTERS WANT CUTS
Support for the RAISE Act reductions is even higher among demographic groups that are seen as holding a lot of the all-important swing voters who will be deciding close elections next year.
Here is the split in favor of immigration cuts to a half-million or lower vs. those in favor of a million or more:
60% - 22% Independents
62% - 24% Moderates
68% - 25% Catholics
67% - 23% Union Households
59% - 22% Suburban Voters
73% - 11% Voters without a College Degree
The splits in favor of deep reductions tended to be even greater among swing voters who voted for Trump last year:
71% - 14% Independents voted for Trump
90% - 8% Democrats voted for Trump
Perhaps most telling of all was the almost 5-to-1 preference for deep immigration cuts among likely Missouri voters who said immigration is in their top 3 issues. The passion among Missouri voters is clearly on the side of the chief aspect of the RAISE Act, which is to greatly reduce the number of foreign citizens added to the country each year with life-time work permits.
As constituents communicate with Sen. McCaskill about whether he will stand with Missouri voters for less foreign worker competition, they might remind her that this poll found that only 16% of voters who are passionate about immigration policy want to continue the current immigration levels or increase them.
And Sen. McCaskill will need to keep an eye on the 75% of passionate voters who want to cut immigration numbers by at least half -- 37% want to cut to zero!
ROY BECK is Founder & President of NumbersUSA
(The poll of 1,000 Missouri voters had a margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. For more information on this poll, see https://www.numbersusa.com/news/missouri-voters-cut-legal-immigration-least-half)
The exact wording of the polling question was: QUESTION: Current federal policy automatically adds about one million new legal immigrants each year giving all of them lifetime work visas. Which is closest to the number of lifetime immigrant work visas the government should be adding each year -- none, 250,000, half a million, one million, one and a half million, two million, or more than two million?
