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Mark's avatar

None have come up in a cursory scan of polls. Most polls seem to be asking "is this issue important to you?" and then ticking off a bunch of issues with responses to "very important" to "not very important". Not many polls are outright asking voters what their #1 issue is. The exit polls will and I'll stand by my prediction from late last year that "immigration and the border" will top the list. I could be wrong and either the economy or reproductive rights rank higher, but I can predict with high confidence that immigration and the border will rank higher than 11% on voters' top issues.

Considering most elections in Europe in the last few years has turned on immigration, it's pretty tone-deaf to think the laws of gravity won't apply here, especially now that the unwritten "I won't talk about immigration if you won't" truce ended among Presidential nominees after the Obama years. The yawning class divide over this issue makes it easy for the college boys in the media and in election analysis community to fail to notice how salient the issue is outside their upscale suburban cul-de-sacs. We'll know in a little over a month who was right I guess.

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michaelflutist's avatar

If you're right that that's the #1 issue, it's not going to be by people who want fewer hassles at the border, and Trump will win by a considerable margin. I think it's extremely unlikely to be the #1 issue.

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IggySD's avatar

There are literally two polls in my comment above that ask “what is the most important issue to you” so they’re not that hard to find. No idea on how good the pollsters are but they’re out there. I think the polls that ask about relative importance would actually support your theory better since it would allow someone to say both the economy and immigration are important to them.

Regarding Europe, I’m not sure it’s an apples to apples comparison. You’ve got the Scandis, where yes, from what I’ve read immigration is a big issue. But those are very white countries. I would expect the fear of people of color to be greater than that in heterogeneous societies. And LePen keeps getting closer and closer in France. But, well, France… Additionally, the aftereffects of colonization are much more recent there, so the dynamic is probably different. Issue polls for the EU are even harder to find than for the US though, so if you have any links to them would be happy to review them.

I am going to agree with you on one thing though, and this goes against my assumptions, but immigration probably will rank higher than health care / abortion in the exit polls. I do think though, that how many people base their vote on each issue is still up for debate.

Look mate, I’m really not trying to be a dick here. But one of the main reasons I started posting on DKE was because people were just throwing out random opinions and stating them as fact. While I disagree with it, I have no problem with your theory that immigration is the key issue, it’s a legitimate hypothesis. The reason I keep pushing back is because you have constantly claimed that you have facts to back your opinion up but those facts have never materialized. I try to be very clear in what I conclude from evidence vs what is my gut instinct, if you did the same I wouldn’t be nearly so argumentative.

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