On Feb. 29, 2024, at 1:35 p.m., Air Force One landed in Brownsville, Texas with President Biden aboard. Less than an hour later, his predecessor, Donald Trump, arrived at Del Rio International Airport, approximately 300 miles away. The fact that two presidents touched down in “The Lone Star State” on a single afternoon was no coincidence. America’s most bitter rivals converged with a common purpose: to address the situation at the southern border.
It was a foregone conclusion that the border would receive top billing in this November’s presidential campaign. Since his infamous descent down the escalator in June 2015, former President Trump has granted immigration — and the alleged perils associated — a leading role in his performance of grievance, and directed his party to step in time.
True to form, Trump and congressional Republicans have ensured that the early months of the general election campaign have been rife with new border-related material. From Trump compelling Senate Republicans to tank Oklahoma Republican James Lankford’s immigration compromise bill, to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., presenting President Biden with a pin with the name of the murdered Augusta student Laken Riley at the State of the Union, to Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., describing the rape of a Mexican cartel trafficking victim in gruesome and demonstrably false detail, Republican efforts to center the border in this election have ranged from the cynical to the absurd to the outright disturbing.
Still, while it may be accurate to summarize the GOP’s tactics around the border as “playing politics,” as President Biden argued in last month’s State of the Union Address, it would be wrong to dismiss the underlying issue as lacking substance. ABC News reported that migrant encounters at the southwest border reached an all-time high of 302,000 in December, and even some high-profile members of Biden’s own party, such as Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, have publicly expressed concerns. Furthermore, as we near a high-stakes election that will likely be decided by a few thousand votes spread across a small number of swing states, there is no room for Biden to concede on issues where votes can be won or lost.
As the Biden team works to solidify its general election strategy, the campaign would be wise to turn to the Harvard Public Opinion Project’s Spring 2024 Youth Poll for a glimpse at how Americans are actually thinking about immigration and the situation at the southern border. This February, HPOP polled a random sample of 2,010 Americans ages 18-29 on a variety of questions about U.S. politics and culture, offering a rare glimpse into the views of an often-overlooked portion of the American public. Below are key takeaways from the data, as well as a set of evidence-based recommendations for how the Biden campaign should move forward in addressing this critical issue.
Key Takeaways:
The border matters: Reflecting the high level of attention given to the border by politicians and the media, 9% of young Americans ranked immigration as the most important issue to them. This beat out all other issues besides the economy, which topped the list at 11%. While relevant across the board, unsurprisingly, the salience of this issue diverged substantially along partisan lines. While 24% of Trump voters placed immigration on top — making it the highest-ranked issue among Trump voters by nearly 10 percentage points — Biden voters ranked immigration below several other issues, with 3% of self-identified Biden supporters choosing it as their top issue. For these young Americans, abortion, the environment, and the economy topped the list at 9%, 9%, and 8%, respectively.
Concerns are widespread: Across the political spectrum, young Americans agree that there is a crisis at the southern border. Among all young Americans, 53% strongly or somewhat agree that there is a crisis, while a mere 16% strongly or somewhat disagree. This gap narrows among Biden supporters, 46% of whom agree that there is a crisis, but this figure still represents a plurality against the 25% of young Biden supporters who reject this characterization. For Trump supporters, there is no question: 81% perceive there to be a crisis, while 3% do not.
Perceptions differ: Notably, while concerns about the border are shared across party lines, the intensity of respondents’ perceptions of the problem are closely linked to which candidate respondents support. Among those who strongly agree that the southern border is in a state of crisis, 51% support Trump, 16% support Biden, and 12% support independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is also to the right of Biden on immigration. However, for those who somewhat agree that there is a crisis at the border, Biden leads at 35%, while Trump’s share is 21%, and Kennedy’s is 14%.
What Now?
Call a Spade a Spade: One thing this data clearly shows is that Biden does not need to ignore the deteriorating conditions at the border to win out on this issue. Among young voters who somewhat agree that there is a crisis at the border, Biden actually exceeds his overall level of support among young voters by seven percentage points, indicating that many young voters do not see a conflict with feeling concerned about the status of the border and also standing behind Biden. The president should capitalize on this fact and take the opportunity to validate the majority of voters who are worried about the border with the knowledge that his base will remain behind him.
Know your audience: The phenomenon of young Biden and Trump supporters perceiving the intensity of the border problem differently, with Trump winning those with high crisis perceptions and Biden winning those with more moderate concerns, may be explained by differences in media consumption habits among the two groups. For coverage of current events, young Trump supporters turned to Fox News over all other legacy media sources. This is notable given the high proportion of airtime the network has allocated to discussing ongoing challenges at the border. Biden supporters, alternatively, were more likely to tune in to CNN and MSNBC — networks which have dedicated substantially fewer broadcast minutes to the topic. This finding presents both good and bad news for Biden. While it indicates that attitudes on the issue are potentially malleable based on the information voters are offered, it also reinforces the challenge that many of the young voters Biden needs to win over on this issue will be hard to reach in a fragmented and polarized media environment.
A Closing Thought:
There’s no telling what will happen during the next eight months leading up to Election Day. An ever-aging President, an ongoing war in the Middle East, and an increasingly emboldened conservative Court majority all have the opportunity to turn this already tumultuous race on its head. With Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial already underway, we may even see a major party’s nominee run from prison for the first time in American history. However, amid all of this volatility, at least one fact about this race can be set down with near certainty: For a large portion of young American voters, the border matters.
