By a ratio of five to four, Americans blame President Joe Biden for the migration crisis, despite the White House’s desperate effort to shift blame to former President Donald Trump, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey.
The national numbers — 50 percent to 41 percent— have turned bad for Biden largely because swing-voting independent voters blame Biden over Trump by 56 percent to 33 percent, according to the May 9-10 survey of 1,000 likely voters by Rasmussen Reports.
But 21 percent of Democrats also blame Biden, while only 15 percent of Republicans blame Trump.
Interestingly, the poll showed a minimal gap between men and women. That result suggests that Biden’s honeymoon among female voters may be dissipating.
The poll asked:
Which point of view comes closest to your own? The nation’s current immigration problems are due to the policies of the Trump Administration [or] The problems are being caused more by the policies President Biden has put in place?
The numbers are especially bad for Biden because the Rasmussen question named both Biden and Trump. The naming then encouraged respondents to tailor their answers to their partisan loyalties, as they do when considering how to vote nationally every two years.
Many other polls use techniques to help people exploit their policy preferences from their partisan loyalties. Those polls tend to show very strong, cross-racial, and bipartisan support for policies that favor Americans over policies that import foreign workers, such as refugees or visa workers.
The Rasmussen poll also asked voters: “Is the current situation with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border a crisis?”
Sixty-five percent of respondents declared it to be a crisis.
But that question does not reveal much about partisan divides. The 65 percent includes Republicans who believe it is a crisis because Biden is accepting t0o many migrants and Democrats who believe it is a crisis because Biden is not welcoming enough migrants.