BORDER/ELECTION/GOP/IMMIGRATION/POLLS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Earlier this month, President Donald Trump’s political team reviewed polling from congressional districts that were competitive in the 2016 election. They showed that border protection, safeguarding immigration officers and standing up to illegal immigration resonated with voters there, according to a person with knowledge of the president’s strategy. The president seized on the issues as winners for Republicans attempting to preserve their congressional majority. Trump has since found the perfect opening with a migrant caravan snaking up through Central America toward the U.S. border — and hitting his favorite cable news TV shows. And now the president is talking and tweeting nonstop about the caravan, hoping his strategy will pay off in the final two weeks before Election Day…An October poll by the Pew Research Center found 75 percent of Republican voters considered illegal immigration a ‘very big’ problem. By comparison, only 19 percent of Democrats felt the same way. The overall percentage of voters who labeled immigration a major issue tracked closely with the level in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, according to Pew data.”
–Christopher Cadelago and Ted Hesson, “Why Trump is talking nonstop about the migrant caravan,” Politico, October 23, 2018 5:05 am