Bulwark Takes - TIDES TURNING? Trump Is LOSING GROUND On His Strongest Issue!

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Sam Stein and Andrew Egger break down surprising new polling numbers that show Donald Trump’s approval on immigration has dropped — even among his own supporters.

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at least according to two new polls. Before we get into that, as usual, subscribe to our feed. Just takes a little click of the button. Really helpful. Thank you. All right. Andrew, we have two new polls. I'm going to read you some interesting data points because I like to write down stuff on a notepad. I'm old fashioned like that. A couple days ago, we had Reuters Ipsos and they asked people how trump was doing on immigration 45 percent approved 46 percent disapproved we thought that was significant because that was the first time i think a legitimate poll had showed him underwater on immigration which is a strong suit but then we get this poll from uh you gov uh and the economist right am i right yes that's correct i just want to make sure this is a factual based publication here. Okay. It's a polling podcast. We don't want to introduce

errors five seconds in. I don't want to bore everyone with numbers, but we're going to bore you with numbers for a little bit. All right. So they ask about immigration. First of all, only 9% said it's the most important issue to them, which just seems about right because the economy is predominantly up there in cooling invasion, but here they go. 45% approve of Trump's handling, 50% disapprove of Trump's handling of the self-identified Trump voters. 14% said they disapproved of Trump's handling small, but significant.

All right. So you're going to say, well, do you think he's doing too much, too little? What, why not? Uh,

they ask, uh, is Trump's approach too harsh about about right, or too soft? What do you think was too harsh? Guess the numbers. Of Republicans or of everybody? No, everybody. 30% of the public. Wrong. 49% too harsh. Wow. 38% said about right. 5% said it was too soft. All right. And then they asked about the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia. The Trump administration

recently deported Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting his deportation. Do you believe Trump should bring Abrego-Garcia back to the U.S.?

So, look, I think the Trump people would say that's, you know, not a totally fair description. It's totally fair to me, but they'll say, you should mention that he's got, you know, ties, Tavis. They should mention all the things that we say that he's a gangbanger terrorist.

He's got tattoos all over his body. Whatever. That's the description they read. Deal with it. Here's the answer. 50 percent said yes. Bring him back. 28 percent said no, do not.

Of the people who said of the Trump voters, 18 percent said they should return him. So about one in five. I mean, look, we've been talking about this. We're starting to see some real shifts. What do you make of it? Yeah, I think the context here is a couple of things. One is that, as you mentioned before, this has been Trump's strongest issue basically all along, all along since his inauguration. And some Democrats have looked at that strategically and said, well, you know, here's where he's strong. Let's hit him where he's weak. Let's let's go after the economy. Let's go after, you know, various other things, especially the economy. And that's been the main one. But but there's also always been this

undercurrent in the polling that Trump's immigration support is sort of inchoate and soft. Right. It's it's yes, people broadly support the idea of doing more deportation. There's this broad sense that kind of the levels of illegal immigration under Biden were out of control and that something must be done about that. But when you actually start to drill down on the specific things that the Trump administration might do to do about that, that support gets a lot softer. And that's been the case in polling all along. How much of this is just like Trump's popularity is dwindling and therefore his approval on all the issues are going to go down? I think there's some of that. But I think that if he were remaining doing things that were broadly popular on immigration, you could

almost imagine it like the two or three fingers left holding him above the cliff, right? Like that he's there. And as and as, you know, these specific things in immigration are in the news, Comarber Garcia is in the news, right? I mean, like that, that is is reminding people, it's not just getting people out of the country. It's these specific things that they're less comfortable with. And I guess I guess the first term also, if I'm remembering correctly, he was underwater popularity rating wise, but people thought he was doing a good job on the economy. Yeah.

And that's fairly consistent. So there is precedent for him getting good approval numbers on specific issues, but not overall. So maybe that's not it. The other thing that's notable about this is that, you know, Democrats trying to rationalize how to attack Trump on this stuff have been like, well, you know, you make it about the defiance of the Supreme Court and court orders, and you don't make it about immigration writ large. You just say Trump is defying orders and therefore risking a constitutional crisis. In fact, these numbers, you know, obviously the Bergo Garcia numbers are bad, but like they're talking about approach to immigration in the abstract. It's not just, is he defying court orders?

And they're saying he's too harsh. So that suggests that there is a soft underbelly on the topic of immigration and not just on the legality of what he's doing. Yeah. And these things also kind of play into each other, right? Like the same Reuters poll, unbelievably strong support for Donald Trump should not defy the Supreme Court, right? Like that's, it's 83%. So like the public says, don't do that, Donald Trump. But the way that that plays in with the immigration is that Trump is making this core argument to his base. And he's basically trying to sell them on the idea that this is worth defying the court over. He's saying, look, the court is not going to let me do what I need to do to deliver on the promises I made to you about immigration.

And so the more kind of he loses support on the immigration question, the kind of more the smaller and more fragmented base he has to stand on the border and border crossings under Biden. And Trump has, for better or worse, really clamped down on the border crossings. I mean, it's just basically plummeted. And so a lot of the anxiety around immigration may have dissipated because of that. And then you get into like the murkier stuff, which is, wait, do I want like students at Brown University being, you know, approached by ICE agents who are in disguise and thrown into a van and taken away and whisked away? Do I want, you know, people who are in hospitals or schools fearing for their safety? Do I want, you know, detention of scientists crossing into the country

back with their research, you know? And it becomes a little bit more hard to swallow. Uh, so that's my devil's advocate. Is Trump's done? Is it because Trump's done a decent job on the border and suddenly attention is drifting to other immigration stuff? I can see the argument there, but I think the broader point with immigration is just that it's an incredibly like thermostatic issue. Right. Because because it's so vibes based and it has so much. Remember, in the first term, Trump's handling immigration was in the tank. Well, yeah. And let me let me kind of spool you out the the kind of narrative of how this all went, because I think because Trump was so grotesquely unpopular immigration, it was an Achilles heel for him outside of his base during his first term. Biden ran so hard on that when he wanted to become president. Then he felt felt obliged because he'd run so hard on it to kind of cater more to his left base.

And then he got crosswise of the electorate. And like the electorate has just ping ponged back and forth on this issue because either they're encountering a bunch of stories about how cruel, you know, border patrol is being to migrants at the border, how cruel, you know, administration policy is on this stuff. That was the story of the first administration, the family separation, kids in cages, all of that stuff. Yeah. And people are like, well, I hate that. That sucks. Let's not do that. Then you get a new administration in there. They get a whole new barrage of headlines, you know, crossings, crossings totally out of control. They're like, well, that sucks, too. Maybe let's get that other guy back in here, see what's going on. And now we're just seeing the pendulum swinging back another round of, well, this sucks. We hate this type headlines. I mean, like people,

people don't have deep commitments on this issue. They're reacting emotively. Well, okay. Some do, but I mean, the reason that you have seen this, why like people do not swing this way about like, how do you feel about socialism or how do you feel about, you know, capitalism? You're talking to the wrong people. It makes it, it provides the case, the foundation for a measured approach. Unfortunately, we've never had immigration reform move through Congress, or at least any time recently. Let me leave you with two other totally unrelated questions

from the YouGov Economist poll, because they were ridiculous, but they were trying to get some, a sense of conspiracy theories in people and how they believe about it. COVID vaccine, is it the deadliest vaccine ever created? What percentage of Trump voters do you think said, yes, definitely true?

I hate this. I hate this question. 20%. 20% of people will say yes. You're right. 18% of Trump voters said definitely true. Vaccines have been shown to cause autism. What percentage of Trump voters definitely believe that's true?

30%. Wrong. 13%. Oh, lower. I know. Okay. My heart. Actually voters definitely believe that's true? 30%. Wrong. 13%. Oh, lower. I know. Okay. My heart. Actually, why did I say, why did I think, of course they like regular vaccine, regular

vaccine. Of course they like longer standing vaccines, matters in the COVID vaccine because the COVID vaccine in particular was so politicized. All right. Well, I like to, you know, freshen up our conversation. Skip it a little. Can I say one other thing too? Yes. I just like, it was so striking to me in the, in the writer's poll. About how much of a pleasure it is to be in the studio.

Sam, what a, what a fun time we're having. But, but I just like, I really want to like hammer home this point about how like the, the, his loss in popularity on immigration, immigration, his loss in popularity on immigration. Andrew's going to learn how to speak at some point. Is a, is a dip in what is supposed to be his kind of like core bedrock. At the very least, I will retain my people on this issue. Like, let me just pull a couple numbers else from that poll.

I mentioned the 83% who say the president needs to obey the Supreme Court rulings. 57% say it's not okay for the president to withhold funding from universities if he doesn't agree with how they're run. 66% say presidents shouldn't be in control of cultural institutions like museums and, you know, like the Kennedy Center, that kind of place. Fifty nine percent say that America is losing credibility on the global stage. I mean, like a lot of the numbers for a lot of the stuff that he's doing are so much worse. And I get why that that sort of makes Democrats say and Trump opponents say, like, well, let's focus on that

stuff. And you should. But also, like, as you hammer down this bottom issue, like, he increasingly doesn't have a different place to run to. Yeah. But the reason that Democrats say that they should focus on other issues, frankly, is because immigration is, again, 9%. Inflation and prices, in terms of which are the most important issues for voters, that's 23%. Jobs and the economy, 11%. Healthcare, 9%. And then there's immigration, 9%. So obviously, Democrats want to play on the issue that people care about most.

But I think what this shows is they shouldn't feel defensive about immigration, that they can, in fact, bring his numbers down, turn one of his strengths into a weakness. And that it implicates the other stuff. It's all tied up in the rule of law stuff and all of that stuff as well. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for tuning in. Really appreciate that. Subscribe to the feed.

We'll be in touch with more polling data and analysis like this. Bye.