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Democrats do better with pro-immigrant messaging than tough-on-border: Study

by Rafael Bernal - 09/25/24 5:42 PM ET

Ads that uplift immigrant stories are more likely to sway voters toward down-ballot Democrats than ones focusing on border security, according to a new impact testing study.

The research, commissioned by progressive groups ASO Communications and Way To Win, measured the reactions of 5,197 adults to a series of campaign ads on immigration and the southern border, including “Tougher,” run by Vice President Harris’s campaign touting her border enforcement credentials, and a control ad run by former President Trump’s campaign making the opposite case.

Test subjects were also shown two ads paid for Way To Win Action Fund, “People Move”, which equates moving from one town to another and one country to another, and “Love Makes a Family,” which links the ideas of providing for a family and migration.

“What you want to say is, what the ads end up doing the trick of — and I’m pointing to ‘People Move’ here in particular — as an ad you want to lift up, like, why does immigration happen? Why is this occurring, in terms that the average American who has not immigrated can understand? And so in the lexicon of the ad, it’s freedom. It’s ‘people move,’” said Anat Shenker-Osorio, a messaging expert at ASO Communications.

According to the study, respondents who viewed Harris’s “Tougher” ad matched up against the Trump ad were afterwards more likely to declare voter intent for Harris; the effect was slightly lower for “People Move” versus the Trump ad and significantly lower for “Love Makes a Family.”

But the two Way To Win ads outperformed the Harris ad in affecting respondents’ choices in House and Senate votes, in declaring their trust for Democrats on immigration issues, in stating that immigrants contribute to the United States and in overall approval for Harris. The “People Move” ad also significantly increased respondents’ stated likelihood to vote, according to the study.

Those effects, said Shenker-Osorio, are part of a messaging strategy designed to counter fear narratives that seek to paint migration as an all-encompassing bogeyman.

“The antidote, the pushback, the way to deal with it is first of all to recognize that [fear-mongering] does have these two elements to it. Element one is raise the saliency of this issue — make people think a lot, in this case, about the border and how you know, the border is sort of the epicenter of all things problematic,” said Shenker-Osorio.

“And thing two that you also need to do is make clear that for opposition, in this case, for Trump, the Democrats are the reason why this issue is so terrible and horrible, and if they are in power come next year, this will only get worse for you, John Q. average voter, in nowhere near the border, or perhaps bordering Canada.”

To counter those arguments, Shenker-Osorio said, Democrats need to “avoid raising the saliency of the border” to instead focus on individual freedoms, including the freedom for people to move from one place to another.

“And you want to have a way to actually explain, ‘Yeah, there is this issue, there is this challenge going on in our country that’s real. We’re not going to make believe it’s not occurring. And here is why it’s occurring, and here’s what I’m going to do about it, and here’s why, what the opposition is saying to you is a bunch of … it’s a bunch of bulls—,” she said.

Shenker-Osorio panned Democrats for supporting the failed bipartisan Senate border security bill, which was tanked among GOP lawmakers by former President Trump.

“Narratively, if you’re trying to tell voters, ‘This is an authoritarian faction in waiting that is hell bent on taking away your freedoms and letting corporations take the wealth our work creates,’ you cannot say in one breath, ‘Hey, these folks are fundamentally dangerous, and they go against everything that you want for yourself and your family in this country. But you know what? They have a decent set of policy ideas on the border, if only they would just pass them.’ Like, those are two opposite things. And so, yeah, it’s a confusing story to tell people,” she said.

The failed bill has become a useful cudgel for the Harris campaign to blast Trump for choosing his own political interests above bipartisanship, but it’s also deeply unpopular with immigration advocates and a source of tension with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).

While the CHC adamantly supports Harris, its members are quick to remind Democratic leadership the group was excluded from the deal’s negotiations.

“If this bill is going to come back in any form it has to go through the CHC first,” said CHC Chair Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.).

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And for Shenker-Osorio, a messaging expert, a proactive message helping voters to relate to immigrants would be more effective for Democrats than hammering the political implications of the divisive bill.

“It’s this idea that moving to make a better life is not just a familiar thing that anyone can understand, even if the only move they’ve ever made is across the street or across the county or across state, but that it comes from a place of courage. It comes from a place of tenacity. It comes from a place of being a really strong, you know, when the going gets tough the tough get going.’ Not a place of patheticness, of weakness, of, you know, ‘please sir, help me out’ kind of thing,” she said.

“So first you want to make clear, like, what is going on here? Why is it going on? And then you want to address, I guess, what we could call the elephant in the room – pun, very much intended — which is, here’s why you are hearing from the other side all of this crap and nonsense. It’s because they want you pointing your finger in the wrong direction.”