April 01, 2008

Poll: only 34% of McCain voters know he supports amnesty

A Center for Immigration Studies poll concerning voter knowledge of and support for their candidates' positions is here. Unlike most other polls, they asked about attrition:

Only 34 percent of McCain voters, 42 percent of Clinton voters, and 52 percent of Obama voters correctly identified their candidate as favoring eventual citizenship for illegal immigrants who meet certain requirements... Of McCain voters, 35 percent mistakenly thought he favored enforcement that would cause illegals to return home, another 10 percent thought he wanted mass deportations, and 21 percent didn’t know his position... Voters often held different positions from the candidate they supported. Only 31 percent of McCain voters had the same immigration position as he does. For Clinton voters, 45 percent shared her position; 61 percent of Obama voters shared his position...

What's also interesting is that almost 3/4 of Fred Thompson voters supported attrition, the highest of any of them (oddly, Giuliani came in second). Thompson was also the only candidate who explicitly came out for that plan. And, 2/3 of his voters correctly named his position, also the highest.

That would seem to indicate that coming out for - and explaining - attrition would work. It also indicates that the MSM has been quite effective in their attempts to lie about both the issue in general and the candidates' positions in particular.

On the other side, only 29% of all Democrats strongly support amnesty, with it being about a quarter for Hillary Clinton, 40% for Barack Obama, and just 14% for John Edwards.

Posted to Immigration2008a at April 1, 2008 08:18 PM