20% of registered voters say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on immigration.
By Raif Karerat
A new survey from the pollsters at Gallup has revealed that immigration will play an even larger role in the upcoming U.S. presidential election that many had previously assumed.
Twenty percent of registered voters in the United States say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on immigration, with another 60 percent attesting it will be one of many important considerations they take into account.
Immigration has become a hot button topic in the lead up to the 2016 scramble for the Oval Office, largely due to the loquaciously vitriolic Donald Trump making it an integral facet of his platform. From making slandering remarks about Mexicans, to supporting the construction of a southern border wall, to lambasting H-1B visas, Trump has thrown down a gauntlet wrought with xenophobia.
According to the poll, registered voters who are Republican, first- or second-generation immigrants or Hispanics are more likely than others to say sharing a candidate’s position on immigration is a must in order to win their vote.
Republicans’ greater likelihood of saying they must agree with a candidate on immigration in order to support him or her suggests the issue should be a more significant factor in the GOP primaries than those of the Democrats.
However, “in the general election campaign, immigration could work to the detriment of the eventual Republican nominee given immigrants’ and Hispanics’ above-average desire for agreement with their chosen candidate on the immigration issue, coupled with their generally pro-immigration views,” reported Gallup.
Meanwhile, 24 percent of blacks who say agreement on immigration is crucial to winning their vote is roughly the same percentage as immigrants, Republicans and Hispanics. Nearly as many blacks — 26 percent — say immigration is not a major issue — which is a higher count than for other subgroups.
Twenty-one percent of registered voters who believe all illegal immigrants should be deported say they will only vote for a candidate who shares their views on immigration, essentially matching the national average.
“Although there aren’t sufficient cases to analyze these immigration views by voters who identify politically as Republican, the limited data available suggest Republicans in favor of deporting undocumented immigrants back to their country are no more likely than Republicans with more moderate views on the issue to say they would only support a candidate sharing their views on immigration,” wrote Gallup.
Results for the Gallup poll were tabulated from on telephone interviews conducted June 15 to July 10, 2015, with a random sample of 1,987 registered voters, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.