Americans who voted in the midterms on Tuesday overwhelming are opposed to President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and do not want foreign workers to take jobs from Americans and legal immigrants who are already here.
An exit poll conducting by Kellyanne Conway’s The Polling Company found that three-quarters (74%) of voters believed that “President Obama should work with Congress rather than around Congress on immigration and separately.”
Overall, strong “majorities of men (75%), women (74%), whites (79%), blacks (59%), and Hispanics (54%),” in addition to tri-partisan majorities of “self-identified Republicans (92%), Independents (80%), and Democrats (51%)” did not want Obama to enact an executive amnesty on his own. Only 20% of voters wanted Obama to move forward with his executive amnesty.
“The President may be the last person in town to realize how resistant Americans are to him playing the Lone Ranger on amnesty,” the polling memo stated. “In fact, based on his press conference yesterday, he has either suspended disbelief or has no awareness of how the immigration issue and his threats to act alone contributed to his party suffering massive losses on Tuesday.”
Obama may also grant work permits to millions of illegal immigrants and give the tech industry nearly a million more guest-worker permits via executive amnesty.
But 80% of voters surveyed wanted “new jobs created by the economy to go to American workers and legal immigrants already in the country.” The view was shared across all regions—74% in the Northeast, 80% in the Midwest, 85% in the South, and 80% in the West–and among men and women (no gender gap).
As the Polling Company noted, these numbers turn “on its head the elitist idea that illegal immigrants ‘do the jobs that Americans don’t want to do.'”
“Voters overwhelmingly prefer an immigration system that protects American workers,” the polling memo states. “Therefore members of Congress should feel confident that voters will support actions using the power of the purse to protect American workers from Obama’s executive amnesty threat.”
But even after Democrats were thumped on Tuesday, Obama said he would enact his executive amnesty, which may include granting work permits to millions of illegal immigrants that would allow them to legally compete with American workers for nearly every job.
The Polling Company poll was conducted on Election Day, November 4, and has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points.