Question for Today

Question for Today

The Republicans are reading this report:

 

In the second installment of our Beyond the Ballot research series, Resurgent Republic sponsored four focus groups on immigration reform with Republican primary voters in Des Moines, Iowa, and Greenville, South Carolina. These Republican voters self-identified as conservatives and said they regularly vote in Republican primaries. On the presidential level, all the participants in Iowa attended at least one Republican presidential caucus; in South Carolina, all the participants voted in both the 2008 and 2012 Republican presidential primaries. The immigration reform focus groups were separated by gender and conducted by McLaughlin & Associates.

Resurgent Republic has done extensive public opinion research on the challenges and opportunities Republicans face among the Hispanic community. Majorities of Latino voters in swing states believe the Republican Party does not respect their values and concerns, according to our post-election analysis. This opinion results from rhetoric from a small, but vocal, number of Republicans that has characterized past immigration debates.

President Obama's reelection victory, and Republicans' shrinking support among non-white voters, has been a seminal moment for conservatives. That is why we felt it important to qualitatively gauge Republican primary voters on this issue. Previous Resurgent Republic research makes it clear that immigration reform should not be viewed as a one-step panacea guaranteeing Republican inroads among Hispanic voters. Yet it is a critically important step in a long-term effort.

1. Republican primary voters strongly support legal immigration and are receptive to messages advocating the values and benefits of such policies. Nearly all participants believe immigration policy should encourage the values of the American Dream. On this point, participants volunteer descriptors such as "freedom," "opportunity," "hard work," and an ability "to make a better life for themselves." There's also a challenge in that most participants have had little to no interaction with today's legal immigration system. Their only reference point is a family lineage that passed through Ellis Island several generations ago. They're largely unaware of the inefficiencies that arise with the current bureaucratic legal system, such as a foreign student who earned a diploma in the United States and cannot receive a green card in a timely fashion or skilled and non-skilled immigrant workers who suffer because the visa system doesn't match economic needs. Republican primary voters align with the values of legal immigration and favor reforms to make the legal process more efficient and less arduous.

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