These are not normal times.
Rather, much of the MA political eye has been on Washington and the Trump Administration’s policy of stripping undocumented children from their families at the southern border. In the face of considerable outcry, Trump reversed his policy choice though numerous children remain separated from their families.
Here in Massachusetts, partisanship conditions responses to Trump’s family separation policy. A WBUR poll commissioned of MA residents in late June, found “92 percent of likely Democratic primary voters opposed Trump’s policy of separating families at the border. …A little more than half of Republican primary voters feel the same way, while 37 percent of likely GOP voters found the policy acceptable.” Views on ICE are more starkly split amongst Democratic and Republican primary voters. Majorities of this subset of Republicans feel favorably toward ICE (65%) with only 13% feeling unfavorable and the remaining 22% undecided. Massachusetts Democratic primary voters are the near inverse – 17% favorable on ICE, 57% unfavorable, and 25% undecided.
These results go a long way in explaining Republican Senate candidate, and current State Representative, Geoff Diehl’s embrace Trump-style immigration policy. In recent days, Diehl’s advertising and twitter postings not so subtly link sitting Senator Elizabeth Warren with ICE. His banners state, “Keep ICE. Defeat Warren.”
In a tweet, Diehl offers, “Elizabeth Warren’s radical agenda to abolish ICE and create open borders must be stopped. Geoff Diehl is the only candidate with a proved record of fighting illegal immigration.”
Radio ads featured by the Diehl campaign open with, “WARNING! Elizabeth Warren supports abolishing ICE and making Massachusetts a sanctuary state” and then play audio of Senator Warren stating, “We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom. Starting by replacing ICE.” [emphasis added]
Will this work in MA? Diehl is banking on it and, in so doing, squarely aligning his electoral chances with Trump’s immigration agenda.
And there is good reason to think MA Republican primary voters will be mobilized by Diehl’s immigration stance. Recall, Trump won the MA Republican Presidential Primary handily. And, as the WBUR poll made evident, majorities of Republican voters held favorable views on ICE. This suggests that the voters central to Diehl capturing the GOP nomination will find much to like in Diehl’s hard right stance. Political scientists Marisa Abrajano and Zoltton Hajnal find that much of the shift toward the Republican party amongst whites in the last several decades is linked to unfavorable views on immigrants – especially Latino/a immigrants. Diehl’s choice in policy emphasis plays into these dynamics. He is throwing red meat to Massachusetts GOP primary voters who seem hungry for Trump’s brand of immigration policy and rhetoric.
But will it work in the November race against Warren?
The evidence suggests he will make inroads surprising to some who equate Massachusetts with liberalism. Recall the racially charged pushback in 2014 when then Governor Deval Patrick announced Massachusetts was willing to house unaccompanied minors at Camp Edwards on Cape and Westover Air Reserve Base in Western Mass. A Boston Globe poll at the time showed 50% of Commonwealth residents supported the plan but 43% opposed assisting unaccompanied minors who had arrived at the US southern border here in Massachusetts. State Senator Don Hummason, for example, wrote, “My position on this issue is simple. Americans and tax-payers first, illegal immigrants last. Our government should be attending to the needs of our own citizens before it tries to take on everybody else.” In retrospect, several town meetings and rallies were harbingers for the rise of Trump and why his immigration campaign rhetoric worked.
My guess is that Warren will nonetheless defeat her GOP challenger – who is likely to be Diehl. She currently enjoys a 25 point lead in a hypothetical match-up against Representative Diehl. While many MA Republican identifiers, and especially Republican primary voters in MA, respond favorable to Trump-style immigration policy, there are still vastly outnumbered by Democrats and unenrolled voters in the Commonwealth. Massachusetts Democrats will also be highly motivated to turnout in the midterm election in response to Trump. Quite an uphill battle for Diehl.
But the degree to which Diehl chips into Warren’s lead will have much to do with his readiness to walk in-step with Trump on immigration and how this motivates Massachusetts Republican base voters and potentially resonates with white unenrolled voters. A test for Massachusetts liberalism, and our decidedly mixed record on issues of race and ethnicity, is thus at play in Warren v. Diehl.