Congressional Republicans don’t believe the polls that show Kamala Harris is closing the gap with Donald Trump on immigration. But if that is the case, some are already blaming GOP leadership.
Polls have repeatedly shown Harris doing better with voters on immigration than Joe Biden did. In a poll released Wednesday, Harris was ahead in key swing states and nipping at Trump’s heels on immigration. When voters were asked who they thought would do a better job handling the issue, Harris trailed Trump by only 4 points in Wisconsin, 2 points in Michigan and 2 points in Pennsylvania.
The New York Times/Siena College poll had Harris trailing Trump by only 5 points among voters in the same three states. A Marquette University Law School poll had Harris still lagging behind Trump by 18 points, which significantly cut Biden’s 27-point deficit on immigration.
“That makes no sense to me. She’s the border czar. She’s responsible for this mess,” Rep. Andrew Clyde told NOTUS. “For a poll like that, to say something like that, tells me that the pollsters rigged it.”
He wasn’t the only one who questioned the polls.
“I think that’s probably a Democrat poll. That’s probably not a Republican poll,” Sen. Rick Scott said.
“I don’t see that happening. That’s certainly not what I’m hearing in my town halls, at all,” Sen. Roger Marshall said.
Over and over again, Republicans could not believe that Harris could make meaningful gains on the issue — or that Democrats’ tougher, more conservative message on the border could actually be convincing.
“I don’t think anybody buys it,” Sen. John Cornyn said. “They know the difference between talk and action.”
Sen. Rand Paul admitted that Harris’ message is different from what Democrats have historically supported on the border but rejected the notion that she could gain ground on the issue.
“When you have a candidate who basically is a chameleon and they will take any position on any certain day depending on which way the wind blows, it’s harder to run against that kind of candidate,” he said. “If the election were on immigration, I think it would be hands down that Harris will lose.”
But these denials didn’t stop Republicans from finger-pointing.
Sen. Ron Johnson first blamed the media for their reporting on Harris’ involvement in Biden border policies. (Harris was assigned to “address the root causes” of migration in Central America.) “That’s because the media hasn’t been honest in terms of reporting her role in opening up the border,” Johnson said.
Then Johnson conceded that his own party’s leadership didn’t help matters when it allowed for a bipartisan deal, only to tank it when it became apparent that Trump didn’t want any kind of compromise to come together. Harris has now adopted that proposal as part of her platform and attacked Republicans for being the obstacle to passing reforms Republicans helped negotiate.
“Unfortunately, Leader [Mitch] McConnell negotiated that disastrous bill to give Democrats political cover,” Johnson said. “That was just a monumental political malpractice there.”
“Absolutely, it was Republican leadership’s fault,” Paul agreed.
Republican leadership didn’t seem bothered.
“I think they’re overthinking this,” said Cornyn, who used to be Republican whip and is currently running for leader.
Sen. Joni Ernst, who serves as Republican Policy Committee chair, scoffed at the idea that some senators blamed leadership for the border bill and its role in the subsequent political mess.
“That’s so yesterday,” she said.
None of the Republicans NOTUS spoke to said they regretted not supporting the Senate border deal despite the fact that Democrats have used it relentlessly in their messaging.
“The only reason that was put out there was because the Democrats had to do something because they were hemorrhaging so bad on an open border,” Sen. Mike Braun said.
At the end of the day, the GOP still feels it has the upper hand.
“We still have an opportunity to point out that she’s our border czar, and she has done nothing when it comes to legal immigration or controlling the illegal migration,” Ernst said. “The border was controlled under President Trump, so I do think that it’s important to recognize that and explain to our public those differences.”
Though lately, that message, too, has been drowned out by the Trump campaign’s focus on conspiracy theories around Haitian migrants.
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.