An escalating number of Republican voters perceive diversity as a potential threat to American tradition, reveals a CNN survey.
Hostility or acceptance towards the escalating multiculturalism serves as a distinct boundary between voters favoring Vice President Kamala Harris in the ensuing presidential election and those endorsement of former President Donald Trump. A majority of 56% of Trump supporters argue that augmenting multiculturalism threatens American tradition, while merely 10% of Harris' supporters share this sentiment.
The data comes in the midst of Trump's persistent political assaults on immigrants in the U.S., including legally residing immigrants. During his first debate against Harris, Trump accentuated unsubstantiated assertions about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which have since been disavowed by other Republican politicians. These claims were initially popularized by Trump's running mate JD Vance, who has expressed his intention to continue referring to these Haitian immigrants as "illegal immigrants," despite the majority having entered the country legally.
Alternatively, the Harris campaign has attempted to highlight immigration issues, with the vice president, who will be visiting the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday during her visit to Arizona, criticizing Trump's proposal for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
The recent CNN poll also reveals that a majority of 54% of registered voters, including 80% of Trump supporters and 26% of Harris supporters, believe that the federal government performs excessive functions for immigrants entering the U.S., with approximately 25% expressing the view that the government is not doing enough. The poll shows that around 40% of Harris supporters believe the U.S. should endeavor to provide more assistance to immigrants, while only 9% of Trump supporters share this belief.
The notion of rising multiculturalism as a cultural threat is not unanimously shared among Trump's supporters. Its prevalence is most profound among Trump's most fervent supporters and less so among the youngest voters supporting him. Among registered voters who indicate that they are voting for Trump primarily to oppose Harris, 44% characterize a multicultural America as a cultural threat, in contrast to 61% among those who say they're voting primarily to express support for Trump. Additionally, 45% of Trump supporters below 35 perceive multiculturalism as a threat, as compared to 59% of those aged 35 and above.
The poll reveals a significant transformation in the GOP's perspective on the nation's growing multiculturalism since before Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election.
In the latest poll, 53% of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters deem growing multiculturalism as a cultural threat, marking the first time over the past eight years that a majority of Republican-aligned voters have assumed this stance. In the summer of 2016, as Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, this figure stood at 39%; it plummeted to 20% in 2019 before surging to 40% last spring in anticipation of the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
In comparison, there has been less fluctuation in the opinions of Democratic-aligned voters: In the most recent research, 86% state that growing multiculturalism enriches American culture, dropping from the near-universal 94% who held this view in 2019 but similar to the 82% who expressed the same view in 2016. (The 2023 survey focused solely on Republican-aligned adults.)
Among potential voters in this year's election, Harris maintains a 15-point advantage over Trump in terms of trust to manage racial inequality in the U.S., while Trump enjoys a 14-point edge over Harris on trust to handle immigration.
Likely voters backing Trump display unwavering faith in his ability to handle immigration, with 95% expressing confidence in his abilities, including 92% of Trump supporters who perceive multiculturalism as a boon to American culture. The poll shows that Trump supporters are less uniformly behind him on handling racial inequality, with around two-thirds expressing faith in his abilities, with approximately 10% of supporters indicating higher trust in Harris and 32% expressing no trust in either candidate on the issue.
The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS online and by telephone between September 19-22, 2024, among 2,074 registered voters nationwide drawn from a probability-based panel. Likely voters include all registered voters in the poll weighted for their predicted likelihood of voting in this year's election. Results for the entire sample of registered voters possess a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.0 percentage points. It is identical among likely voters and larger for subgroups.
The persistent political attacks on immigrants by former President Trump, such as his unsubstantiated claims about Haitian immigrants during his debate with Vice President Harris, contribute to his supporters' views that augmenting multiculturalism threatens American tradition in politics. Despite the Harris campaign's efforts to highlight immigration issues and criticize Trump's proposal for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, a majority of Trump supporters continue to perceive federal government functions for immigrants as excessive.
