Forty-two percent of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers said that former President Trump’s recent remarks about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the country makes them more likely to support him, according to a new poll.
The Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll asked likely Republican caucusgoers about statements made by the president, including Trump’s recent claim that migrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” The remarks have been condemned by various figures on both sides of the political aisle and resulted in comparisons between the former president and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Twenty-eight percent of likely Iowa GOP caucusgoers said Trump’s “poisoning the blood” comments made them less likely to support him in the caucuses. Twenty-nine percent said the remark “[d]oes not matter” when it comes to their support.
The poll, conducted between Dec. 2 and 7, features responses from 502 likely Republican Iowa caucusgoers and has a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
The former president has pushed back against the comparisons to Hitler, who wrote in “Mein Kampf” that German blood was being poisoned by Jews. At a rally in Iowa on Tuesday, Trump mirrored his recent “poisoning the blood” comments and tried to distance himself from Hitler all within a period of a few sentences.
“They’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing. They’re destroying our country. They don’t like it when I said that — and I never read ‘Mein Kampf,’” Trump said.
“They could be healthy, they could be very unhealthy, they could bring in disease that’s going to catch on in our country, but they do bring in crime, but they have them coming from all over the world,” Trump continued. “And they’re destroying the blood of our country. They’re destroying the fabric of our country.”