Americans are feeling better about the economy. That ought to be good for President Biden, whose biggest domestic problem for much of his first three years in office has been inflation.
The bad news for Biden is there’s a new dominant problem: Immigration. In monthly polling by Gallup, the portion of respondents saying immigration is the nation’s No. 1 problem jumped from 9% last August to 28% in February. That correlates with the record numbers of migrants trying to enter the United States at the southwest border in recent months.
Biden seems to realize the flood of migrants into the country is becoming a big enough problem to sink his reelection bid. He traveled to the border town of Brownsville, Texas, on Feb. 29 to indicate his concern and call on Congress to pass an immigration reform bill that seems to be going nowhere. Though some Republicans back the bill, former President Donald Trump has pressured them not to pass it so that the border chaos continues and Biden gets no credit for any solutions.
Trump, who has nearly locked up the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, visited another border town, Eagle Pass, Texas, on the same day Biden was in Brownsville. With his usual hyperbole, Trump tried to brand the migration surge as the “Biden invasion” and vowed an epic deportation effort if elected president later this year.
For many voters, immigration is an emotional and poorly understood issue fanned by cable news hysteria and white-working-class worries about the rising power of minority groups. It’s true that border crossings have surged during the Biden administration, but less recognized is the fact that more than 40% of migrants are expelled or leave for other reasons. Trump, ever the fearmonger, claims there’s a new rash of “migrant crime,” but—wait for it—there’s no evidence that’s true.
Still, Biden probably has to do something, given the level of attention the migrant problem is now getting. The bipartisan immigration bill that Republicans are now blocking would have set a limit on the number of migrants allowed to cross the border each day, with all others turned away. Biden may now try to enact something similar through an executive order. Such a move would probably face court challenges, but that may matter less for Biden than simply showing voters he even has a plan.
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The now-tabled immigration bill would also have provided funding for more immigration judges and other resources needed to ease many logjams in the system. Since only Congress can appropriate money, there’s not much Biden can do to provide more resources without Congressional action.
Another question for Biden’s reelection campaign is whether gloomy voters are simply going to find something to be unhappy about, even if one problem seemingly gets better. Inflation has dropped sharply since it peaked in June 2022, and consumer confidence levels have notably improved during the last few months. But Biden’s approval rating remains stubbornly depressed, as if everything that goes right is offset by something going wrong.
In Gallup’s surveys, the portion of respondents saying some aspect of the economy is the nation’s biggest problem has improved slightly since last summer. The biggest single problem in recent months has been “government/poor leadership,” which dropped from 21% in January to 20% in February. At the same time, immigration jumped from 20% in January to 28% in February. It’s hard to find any good news in there for Biden, given that each of these categories reflects his performance, or at least how voters perceive it.
There are certainly opportunities for Biden to improve his standing with voters during the eight months leading up to Election Day. Forecasters have been upgrading their estimates for economic growth and stock market returns in 2024. More growth and more household wealth would continue to take the bite out of inflation, which could be back to normal levels by Election Day anyway.
For many Americans, immigration was off the radar until recently, probably because news coverage of the migrant surge and Trump’s continual flogging of the issue picked up. If immigration went from a middle-of-the-pack problem last year to the No. 1 problem now, maybe it can recede in voters’ minds if Biden comes up with a plan that seems decisive. Voters, however, may simply find something else to feel bad about.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
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