The one issue that could destroy Hillary Clinton

One of the media’s most persistent shortcomings during this election season has been an unwillingness to recognize the issue central toDonald Trump’ssuccess. Post-game analyses offer many explanations—that Republicansare stupid, thatthey’re nihilistic, that themedia failed—yet many barely mention the real reason: immigration. It’s an omission so persistent that the bloggerMickey Kaus,an immigration hawk, has jokingly begun to awardomertà prizesin its honor. Failing to understand its salience with Republican voters has been central to failing to predict who would rise and who would fall in this primary season.

Now that we head toward the general election, of course, the issue of immigration, which was gold for Trump in the primaries, is widely seen as his kryptonite. But it may be that the exact opposite is true: that immigration is the issue that insidiously defeatsHillary Clinton.

By most appearances, Hillary is in good shape for November. She has a grasp of policy and familiarity with the ship of state that will create a startling contrast with her opponent in their debates. Trump has a long way to go in fund-raising. His lack of impulse control shows few signs of being remedied. The list goes on for longer than any of us has time to complete. Still, Clinton’s fight in the primaries has caused her to take some positions that she’d prefer to avoid in the general election, and those on immigration may be costliest.

Everyone knows that Trump has staked out extreme turf on border control, promising a wall and adeportation force. But Clinton has gone far in the opposite direction. “I would not deport children,”she saidat a debate in March, afterproposing the exact opposite in late 2014. “I do not want to deport family members, either.” In short, under Clinton’s policy, if you manage to sneak across the border illegally and make it into a city, you won’t be removed. You could call that open borders, except it’s messier. It’s more like a free-for-all.

The question, then, is who is less in sync with the mainstream. Most immigration polls are unreliable, offering choices between fantastical extremes—between mass deportation (which won’t happen), for example, or legalization once the border has been controlled (which is like drug legalization once addiction has been eliminated)—or leaving terms so vague as to be nearly useless. A Politicopoll from 2014found that more than 70 percent of Americans, including 64 percent of Republicans, backed “comprehensive immigration reform”—but it never defined what the terms of the “reform” might be.

Still, here is some of what we have to go by. At regular intervals, an organization called the Public Religion Research Institute offerspollsshowing that more than 60 percent of Americans favor a path to citizenship for immigrants who are here illegally, provided they meet certain undefined requirements. This suggests that amnesty, at least in theory, is acceptable to most Americans. At the same time, support for border control is strong. AWashington Post/ABC Newspollfrom April 2013 found that 67 percent of Americans supported spending more on border enforcement, and 83 percent supported laws requiring businesses to check on the immigration status of prospective employees, a measure that many Democratshave opposed. It also found that, while 62 percent of registered voters prefer to grant unauthorized immigrants a path to citizenship (provided they meet “other” unspecified requirements), 50 percent (versus 44 percent) would favor it “only after border control has been improved.”

In sum, Trump’s approach is far tougher than voters seem to want, but Clinton’s is far laxer. That means voters will have to jump to one extreme or the other. Because the working class feels the effects of uncontrolled immigration far more acutely than do wealthier Americans, Trump may well have an advantage.

Many Democrats believe that the Latino vote will put Hillary over the top—or cause Trump to lose, especially because of his obnoxious comments about vast swaths of Mexican Americans. But even small movements in the share of the white vote outweigh large movements in the share of the Latino vote.

Two examples will suffice, and both were arrived at by using the remarkableSwing-o-Maticfrom FiveThirtyEight. In the 2012 election, 57 percent of non-college-educated whites showed up to vote, and 62 percent of them voted Republican. So let’s keep turnout the same and play with vote share. If 73 percent of these non-college-educated whites had voted Republican, then, even if 100 percent of Latino voters (as opposed 71 percent) had gone for Obama,Mitt Romneywould have won the election. This year, Latino voters will probably show up in larger numbers, inspired by revulsion toward Trump, and black voters may show up in smaller numbers than the onesBarack Obamais believed to have inspired.

So let’s suppose the African-American vote reverts to the 2004 figures: 60 percent turnout, 88 percent Democratic. With a five-point increase in turnout among non-college-educated whites and a 10-point increase (from 62 percent to 72 percent) in the share of their votes, Trump seems to have a secure win. That would remain the case even if Latinos increased voter turnout by 10 points (from 48 to 50 percent) and increased their support for Democrats by nearly 30 points, up to 100 percent. Fundamentally, then, a small percentage of white voters hating Clinton’s stance on immigration could outweigh a large percentage of Hispanic voters liking it.

I doubt Hillary Clinton believes deep down in the soundness of her immigration promises. She’s too analytical to believe that border erasure will lift all boats, and must know that an uncontrolled influx of people (regardless of whether net immigration from Mexico since 2009 hasbeen negative) is incompatible with a welfare state, which has a finite amount of support to divvy up among poorer Americans. But both Clinton andBernie Sanders,who once denounced open borders as a “Koch-brothers proposal,” seem convinced that competing with one another to promise non-enforcement is essential to surviving the primaries.

So what now? If the question about immigration policy becomes one of being pro-immigrant or anti-immigrant, then Clinton will be helped in the general election. By contrast, if the question becomes one of being for immigration control or being for open borders, then Clinton will be hurt—perhaps hurt enough to lose.

Many media outlets will be trying to frame the debate in terms of question one. But Donald Trump has shown a knack for changing the conversation.

What Do Americans Really Think of Immigration?

Many media outlets will be trying to frame the debate in terms of question one. But Donald Trump has shown a knack for changing the conversation.

By Luciano Mortula/Getty Images.

From FPG/Getty Images.

From Comstock Images/Getty Images.

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