Long Island Wins
Action Center Alert
Research & Statistics Chattering Pundits, American Voters Worried About Different Things

By Pat Young
Program Director, CARECEN

New polling data from Newsweek indicates that immigration continues to be seen by many Americans as a less than critical issue in the presidential elections.


Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.
Oct. 31-Nov. 1, 2007. N=1,002 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 4 (for all registered voters).

In deciding which presidential candidate to support in 2008, which one of the following issues is most important to you: [see below]?"

- All            RepublicansDemocratsIndependents
The economy and jobs22%14%30%19%
Iraq19%13%26%19%
Healthcare17%14%22%15%
Terrorism and national security 15%27%5%14%
Taxes and government spending 10%16%4%11%
Immigration 7%10%3%8%
The environment and global warming 5%1%7%8%
Other/None of these 1%2%-1%
Unsure 4%3%3%5%


With jobs and the economy, Iraq, health care, terrorism, and taxes all outpolling immigration as voters' most pressing concern, the question is why are the chattering classes so obsessed by it?

This election cycle, many Republicans are making immigration the "gay marriage" issue of 2007-2008. While few serious analysts expected gay marriage to have much impact at all on the institution of heterosexual matrimony, the issue was great at mobilizing folks who felt uncomfortable with an America different from the ordered, segregated, and in the closet country of their parents.

Similarly, opposition to new immigration is less about a desire by Americans to reclaim those great jobs picking lettuce and mowing lawns, and more about the transition of our country from one in which minorities knew their place to one in which a Black man can run for president as a serious candidate.

Immigration can serve as a proxy issue for questions of race, culture, and America's place in the world. Issues that could never be talked about in any other context form the subtext of the so-called "immigration debate."

It's not about the economy STUPID - It's about the culture war being waged by some on the right.