It may or may not be too late to win the current battle at this point -- and the Trump administration's ineptitude in this endeavor should not go unnoticed -- but the Democratic Party is once again adopting a hyperbolic and extreme policy stance that flies in the face of public opinion. The administration has sought to reintroduce a simple yes/no citizenship question on the US census, a move angrily denounced by most leftists and many of their mainstream media allies. Earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi inveighed against this effort as "disgraceful" and part of Trump's plan to "make American white again." Do voters agree? Via the Trump campaign, surprise:
Oh man. Narrative busted!
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) July 9, 2019
67% of all registered voters approve of adding a citizenship question to the U.S. census - including 55% (!!) of HISPANIC VOTERS.
It's not controversial. It's not racist. It's common-sense. https://t.co/LlQ81robiJ
Two-thirds of voters approve of a citizenship question on the 2020 census, and that includes a majority of Hispanic voters — despite claims by Democratic lawmakers that the inquiry would discourage participation in Latino communities. A Harvard University Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll found that 67% of all registered U.S. voters say the census should ask the citizenship question when the time comes. That includes 88% of Republicans, 63% of independents and 52% of Democrats. Most notably, the poll found that 55% of Hispanic voters favor the idea.
Nearly 60 percent of black voters also support the idea, meaning that clear majorities of America's two largest racial minority voting blocs approve of the "disgraceful" plan. Does Pelosi believe these people are enthusiastic about making America "white again" or whatever, or that they're too stupid to agree with her? This Harvard/Harris survey comes on the heels of another national poll showing only one-third of voters opposing the citizenship inquiry:
Majority want citizenship question on Census, 53%-32% https://t.co/8jTjXRxMue pic.twitter.com/iCF7vil8U9
— Paul Bedard (@SecretsBedard) July 7, 2019
Leave it to a leftist fringe to decide that a sovereign government wishing to count its own citizens in a census is somehow sinister. And leave it to the Democrat-media complex to stampede to the same talking points that make no sense to most normal people. Which leads us to our next data points: A new national poll from Emerson finds President Trump surging against his hypothetical Democratic opponents, in the wake of a pair of debates in which the 2020 opposition field embraced a string of radical positions. As usual, I'll note that head-to-head polling will be statistically useless until late next winter, but this trend seems to confirm the Team Trump's contention that the incumbent emerged as the victor of the opposing party's opening debates:
Since the June poll, Trump has seen his head to head numbers improve against all his Democratic rivals. He is now leading Warren, Buttigieg, and Harris 51%-49% each after trailing them all last month. Sanders leads Trump 51%-49% and Biden 53% to 47%. Kimball says, “It looks like Trump was a winner from the Democratic debate, as his head-to-heads tightened by about 5 points against all the leading Democratic candidates.”
Biden remains Democrats' surest bet (on paper, at least, and it's early), while Trump ties or narrowly leads everyone else. This is hardly a one-off finding either, as two recent surveys show the incumbent's job approval climbing into the high-40's, boosted by economic satisfaction. As I've written previously, Trump's easiest path to re-election entails economic prosperity and leftist extremism.