A 2014 report from the Center for Immigration Studies suggests that more immigrants = more Democrats winning elections.
“The enormous flow of legal immigrants into the country – 29.5 million from 1980 to 2012 – has remade and continues to remake the nation’s electorate in favor of the Democratic Party,” writes study author James Gimpel, a professor at the University of Maryland.
While Gimpel’s study focused on legal immigration only, President Trump has repeatedly claimed that illegal immigrants also contribute to the Democratic vote.
Immigration data for the past three decades suggests immigrants are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. According to a 2012 study cited in Gimpel’s report, roughly 62% of foreign-born, naturalized immigrants identify as Democrats. About 25% said they were Republicans and 13% identified as Independents.
There were about 8.7 million immigrants in the US eligible for naturalization when Gimpel’s report was published. Between 50 and 60% are now legal citizens.
That’s a lot of Democrats.
In his study, Gimpel also took into account the immigrants likely to come to the US in the future. Asians and Hispanics, he said, “have policy preferences when it comes to the size and scope of government that are more closely aligned with progressives than with conservatives.” Asians and Hispanics are twice as likely to vote Democratic.
On top of that is the fact that immigration tends to exacerbate income inequality in the areas in which they settle. “It is from areas of higher income inequality that we find the most support for a robust government with an expansive regulatory and redistributive role in the economy, among all citizens, not just immigrants,” writes Gimpel.
The political effects of immigration are “uniform throughout the country,” notes Gimpel, meaning that both Republican and Democratic areas become more Democratic with the arrival of immigrants.
Take Broward County, Florida, for example: between 1980 and 2014, Broward’s immigration population increased from 11% to 32%. During that same time period, Broward went from being 56% Republican to just 32% Republican.
You can see the same effects anywhere with a large immigrant population.
—
When you take Gimpel’s report into account, the Congressional standstill on DACA starts to make a bit more sense.
Republicans are split on immigration reform, but Democrats are united in the demand that we legalize Dreamers. They are even willing to shut down the government to get their way.
There are an estimated 3.6 million Dreamers currently living in the US. Granting them citizenship and allowing them to vote could have a massive effect on future elections.
Editor’s notes: Initially illegal immigrants love the Democratic Party because they give away lots of benefits, benefits they never had in their own countries. As illegals, they can’t really assimilate, so they never really grow into mature U.S. citizens. I believe that legal immigrants, once they assimilate, make themselves part of America, find they can earn a great living without the free benefits, and become better suited to the Republican Party philosophies.