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A quick hello before we dig in. We launched Poll Vault publicly on Monday, and the response has genuinely floored me — the signups, the kind notes, the thoughtful feedback from people I admire in this industry. Thank you. Truly.
If you're new here: this is Due Data, the weekly polling dispatch from Poll Vault. Every week I dig through the public opinion polling our system surfaces and pull out the findings worth your inbox — the surprising numbers, the cross-tabs that change the story, the cohort shifts that haven't broken into the news cycle yet. Some weeks it's AI. Some weeks it's energy or the economy. This week, it's immigration.
Glad you're here. Let's get into it.
While the cable nets pivot from Tehran to the Strait of Hormuz, pollsters have spent the last month doing the unglamorous work of measuring how Trump's immigration crackdown is actually landing. The picture is more interesting than either side's talking points suggest. Republicans still own the issue on paper. The crackdown itself is bleeding support — including, quietly, inside the president's own coalition.
50% Say Too Far
Public First (n=2,035) finds half the country saying the deportation push has gone too far — and 25% of Trump's own 2024 voters agree. A quarter of your base telling pollsters you've overshot is not a normal finding. It is the kind of number that, in a different administration, would trigger a course correction.
The administration has tried to engineer one. After the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, DHS swapped leadership and pivoted on messaging. Public First's tracking suggests it hasn't moved opinion: 51% still say a heavier ICE presence makes cities more dangerous, essentially flat from January's 52%. The brand damage has set.
The Right Still Owns the Topline
But here's what makes this complicated: the crackdown is unpopular, but the issue isn't. Two pieces of data make the GOP's continued political asset clear.
Fox News' April poll (Shaw / Beacon, n=1,200 RV) shows Republicans with a +16 advantage on border security and +8 on immigration heading into the midterms — among the party's largest issue advantages anywhere. And SurveyMonkey (n=32,433) clocks Trump's immigration approval rebounding to 44%, up 4 points from the post-Minneapolis floor. Still underwater, but trending the wrong direction for Democrats counting on the issue to collapse on its own.
The message-testing data underscores why. The Center for American Progress ran a likely-voter experiment (n=2,271) on the $75 billion ICE funding bill. Republican framing punished Democrats: an "Immigration / America First" message moved Democratic vote choice -1.1 points, and a "Law and Order" frame moved it -1.0. Both landed in the 68th–72nd percentile of GOP messages tested.
What worked for Democrats? Cost. Reframing the $75 billion as a trade-off against Medicaid and SNAP cuts moved vote choice +2.0 points — the strongest opposition message in the test. Notably, attacking ICE on conduct grounds — the unlawful-behavior frame — moved vote choice only +0.9 points, putting it in the 30th percentile.
The fight over immigration enforcement isn't won by litigating ICE conduct. It's won by making voters connect $75 billion in agents to what they're losing somewhere else.
There is real political potency remaining on the right. It just doesn't run through defending every ICE raid.
The Latino Backlash Is the Story
Three polls released within a few weeks tell the same story from different angles: Latino voters are not having it, and the cohort the GOP spent years recruiting is the one slipping fastest.
Equis Research (n=2,400, with 2,000 Hispanic registered voters) finds 65% of Hispanic voters saying Trump's immigration actions have "gone too far" rather than been justified (30%). That majority includes 93% of Hispanic Democrats, 66% of Independents, and — striking — 26% of Hispanic Republicans. Border security is Trump's relative strength among Latinos (net +1). Interior enforcement is a disaster: net -26, with 61% disapproving.
Impact Research / BSP Research (n=1,000 LV plus 850 Hispanic oversample) tells you what voters want done about it. All ten ICE accountability reforms tested cleared 66% support overall. Body cameras pull 94%. Citizenship verification before detention pulls 84%. Banning warrantless entry to private property pulls 70% overall and 78% among Latinos. 59% of all voters — and 81% of Latinos — want major ICE reforms enacted before Congress sends another dollar.
Public Opinion Strategies — a Republican firm, worth flagging — confirms the split from a different vantage point. 66% of Latinos disapprove of ICE's tactics; only a bare 52% majority oppose the deportation agenda itself. Latinos can hold both views simultaneously: enforcement is fine, brutalism is not.
The Cuban Exception Just Cracked
This is the section that should have campaigns paying attention. South Florida Cubans — a bedrock of the Florida GOP — are revolting against the deportation tactics specifically targeting their community.
Bendixen & Amandi / Tarrance Group (n=800 South Florida Cubans, bipartisan firms) finds 68% disapprove of increased deportations of undocumented Cubans without criminal records. 81% support a legal immigration path for Cubans. 76% want the administration to resume processing immigration benefits — green cards, asylum, citizenship — for Cubans already in the U.S. Among 1960s-arrival Cubans, the most reliably Republican subset of the Cuban diaspora, 71% still want benefits processing resumed.
This is a community Trump won decisively. The deportation campaign is the wedge that's prying it loose.
The Pulpit Speaks
The most underappreciated poll of the month came from Lifeway Research, surveying 667 senior Protestant pastors. These are the messengers upstream of millions of conservative churchgoers, and their views are sharply at odds with the administration's posture:
- 98% call legal immigration helpful to the country
- 82% support legislation combining border security with a path to citizenship
- 78% specifically back a citizenship pathway for qualifying undocumented immigrants
- 53% want the annual legal immigration cap increased
On deportation volume, pastors fracture: 38% say current levels are too high, 24% say about right, 18% say too low. The mainline-evangelical split is real (60% of mainline pastors want reductions vs. 27% of evangelicals), but even within the evangelical column, the numbers reading "America First" sermons aren't there.
When the pastor cohort is more pro-immigrant than the political base it shepherds, the pulpit and the pew are pointing in different directions. Worth tracking what happens when sermons start catching up.
This Week's Shorter Stories
🎓 35% approve of Trump on immigration in the UMass Amherst poll — converting what was once his signature strength into a clear liability. A separate UMass survey puts ICE approval at just 33%.
💰 Half of voters back cutting or eliminating ICE entirely in Verasight's survey of 3,429 RV — 23% want the budget reduced, 27% want it eliminated. Among 18–34 year-olds the cuts-or-eliminate share rises to 68%.
🏘️ Nearly one-third of LA County residents told Mercury Public Affairs they personally know someone who lost income or feared leaving the house because of an ICE raid. The pollster called it the most important finding of the year. Hard to argue.
🗳️ In Florida's CD-28, ICE raids split 48–49 district-wide but score -19 net favorability among NPA (independent) voters in EDGE / MDW polling. Republicans approve at 90%. The mid-decade swing district story in microcosm.
What to Watch
- Whether the ICE funding fight breaks out of cable. CAP's data says the cost frame is the strongest Democratic message available. Whether the leadership uses it consistently is a different question.
- Cuban defection in the FL gubernatorial. If Bendixen's numbers hold, the 2026 Florida races are the canary. A 10-point Cuban swing reshapes the state.
- The pastor signal. Does Lifeway's 98%/82% pro-immigrant pastor consensus start showing up in Sunday sermons, or does cultural alignment win out? Watch for pastor-led letters to Congress.
What Else We Tracked This Week
- Spanberger's Immigration Amendments Draw Mixed Reactions Amid Split Poll — State Navigate (Virginia)
- Pastors Broadly Back Legal Immigration and Citizenship Path — Lifeway Research
- Half of Voters Back Cutting or Eliminating ICE — Verasight
- Birthright Citizenship Restrictions Poll at 59% — Rasmussen Reports
- Trump's Immigration Approval at 35%, Once His Strongest Issue Now a Liability — UMass Amherst
- ICE Raids Draw Near-Even Split in FL-28 but -19 Among Swing Voters — EDGE / MDW Communications
This month Poll Vault tracked 17 US immigration polls — see them all →
Until next time, Alex Lundry
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