Donald Trump is betting that voters care more about immigration than the economy

CNN
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At last month’s presidential debate, Donald Trump claimed that violent migrant gangs were “taking over” Aurora, Colorado, amplifying and exaggerating a controversial rumor that his supporters had spread online in the days leading up to his nationally televised face-off with Kamala Harris.

Now the former president will hold a rally in Aurora, putting a renewed spotlight on this midsize Mountain West city along with the issue that Trump hopes will decide this race: immigration.

Trump has all but staked his presidential campaign on convincing Americans that closing the border and expelling those who crossed it illegally are the country’s most pressing priorities. It’s a pitch he’s delivered with increasingly dark and offensive rhetoric that draws on stereotypes of foreigners from poorer countries.

He has claimed — over the repeated objections of state and local leaders, including his own party — that Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the pets” of local residents. To residents of a tiny Wisconsin town, he warned of what people from all over the world are “doing to the fabric, the bowels of our country.” This week, Trump made nativist arguments about how some immigrants have “bad genes” that lead them to commit crimes.

However, it is a closing argument that carries considerable risk. A steady stream of polls throughout the year and leading up to the final weeks of the presidential campaign have repeatedly confirmed that the economy is the issue of greatest concern to most voters. In a recent SSRS CNN poll, more than four in 10 likely voters said the economy was the most important issue when choosing a candidate to lead the country. Only 12% said immigration is their top priority.

Given this reality, Trump’s own campaign appears to have shifted its approach to persuading voters in key battleground states by moving away from his candidate’s preferred message. In August, the Trump campaign spent about $15.5 million on television ads about immigration. Over the next month, however, there were virtually no such immigration-related ads on the airwaves.

Meanwhile, the campaign poured even more ad dollars into news about the economy, accounting for about 77% of its spending on broadcast advertising in September.

Given that poll, however, Trump is trusting his gut, telling a crowd in Wisconsin on Sunday, “I really don’t think” the economy will decide the election.

“I know they do all these polls and the polls say it’s because of the economy and the polls say very clearly it’s because of inflation and I can understand that a little bit,” Trump said. “For me, it is the terrible people we allow into our country that are destroying our country. And it’s also the hardest problem to solve.”

Illegal immigration is certainly comfortable territory for Trump. In 2015, he launched his first White House bid, railing against the entry of Mexican “drugs,” “crime,” and “rapists” into the country. He then focused his campaign on a promise to “build the wall” on the southern border and make Mexico pay for it, something he was unable to deliver as president.

Still, the 458 miles of new and replacement wall his administration built along the U.S.-Mexico border serve as a physical — still unfinished — reminder of his longstanding goal of deterring outsiders from entering the country illegally.

Trump regularly laments his failure as incumbent in 2020 to win support for the issue that he believed had first won him the White House. In his own retelling – which he often shares with supporters at rallies – “I wanted to talk about the border. My people said, ‘Sir, no one wants to talk about the border anymore.'”

That is no longer the case as Trump seeks the Oval Office once again. The former president has resurfaced many of his promises from eight years ago, including a pledge to finish the wall and another to begin the largest mass deportation in American history by tasking local and state law enforcement with deporting millions of undocumented people throughout to deport the country.

It’s a topic he brings up at most public appearances – even at events that are supposedly about other topics. Speeches advertised as remarks on the economy, crime or inflation often begin and end with extended remarks on his favorite topic, sometimes overshadowing the message he intended to convey.

For example, during a visit to Savannah, Georgia, which Trump described as “remarks on the tax code and U.S. manufacturing,” Trump mentioned the word “border” 29 times, surpassing the number of mentions of “manufacturing.” In Tucson, Arizona, Trump stood in front of a sign that read, “Make Housing Affordable Again,” but warned more about migrants “taking Hispanic jobs, African-American jobs, people who have been here a long time.” The first reference to “living” came 30 minutes into his speech.

Trump has at times publicly criticized his advisers for trying to place such limits on his statements.

“We do this as an intellectual speech. “We’re all intellectuals today,” Trump said in a mocking tone in August in Asheville, North Carolina, where he was scheduled to speak about the economy. “They say it is the most important issue. I think crime is right there. Personally, I think the limit is right there.”

Trump’s campaign noted that he has also held immigration-related events, including a recent visit to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, that featured small-town Americans whose lives have been upended by acts of violence by undocumented immigrants.

It has also been argued that immigration remains a top issue for many voters. A recent Gallup poll found that 72% of Americans said it was an “extremely” or “very” important issue – the highest in the organization’s poll, which dates back two decades. But much of it is being driven by Republicans, 63% of whom said the issue was “extremely” important to their vote in November.

That poll also showed that independents were divided between Trump and Harris over who would solve the problem better.

Harris has recently sought to limit Trump’s perceived strength on the issue. At the end of September, she made her first visit to the US border as a presidential candidate. In a town hall hosted by Univision on Thursday, she accused Trump of rejecting a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year and claimed he wanted to “address a problem.”

“Donald Trump learned about this bill, realized it would be the solution, and told them not to vote because he would prefer to address a problem rather than solve a problem,” Harris said. “Real leadership is about solving problems on behalf of the people.”

There should be no misconceptions about Trump’s appearance in Aurora on Friday, which his campaign announced in a press release saying, “Kamala’s border bloodbath has made every state a border state.”

How Aurora became the flashpoint of the race is an example of the speed with which right-wing online fixations enter the mainstream. Trump’s supporters seized footage from an apartment complex in the city that filmed men walking through hallways armed with guns and, in one case, kicking down a door, followed by several women and small children.

The images spread quickly on social media, with Trump supporters claiming they showed Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex. The building’s owner appeared to confirm that description, but the city said substandard housing conditions maintained by the landlord were the problem, not the migrants. Meanwhile, local police have uncovered gang activity linked to a Venezuelan group, but have dismissed theories that the gang has taken over any buildings in the city.

But that didn’t stop Trump from seizing on the incident and escalating the falsehoods by claiming that Venezuelan gangs were taking over much of Colorado. He then announced violent intervention if he were elected.

“You know, it’s going to be a bloody story getting them out,” he told his supporters at a rally in Wisconsin last month.

After Trump mentioned Aurora in the debate, the city’s mayor, Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman, said in a statement that “the exaggerated claims fueled by social media and select news organizations are simply not true.”

Trump had also planned to visit Springfield, Ohio – another city besieged by right-wing conspiracy theories about its immigrant population – but backed out after local authorities warned of the damage it would do to the community.

However, Coffman told a local news outlet in Colorado that he welcomed Trump’s visit.

“If he comes here, I see it as an opportunity to show him the city,” he said, “and break the narrative that this city is out of control when it comes to Venezuelan gangs.”

CNN’s David Wright, Caitlin Stephen Hu, Rafael Romo and Belisa Morillo contributed to this report.