New York Times
By Maggie Haberman
February 5, 2016
Political
pundits and Republican leaders like to say that nobody could have
foreseen the extraordinary rise of Donald J. Trump’s presidential
candidacy.
But
there were early signs that the electorate was ready for an insurgency
like the one Mr. Trump has inspired this election. And some of the most
powerful of those indicators
came from New Hampshire.
In
2014, Scott Brown, a Republican and former Massachusetts senator who
was running for a Senate seat in New Hampshire, aired an ad that seemed a
curious fit for the state:
As ominous music played in the background, and scenes of southern
border crossings flashed on the screen, Mr. Brown described an
“immigration crisis” sweeping the country.
“Americans
go through security before they get on a plane, enter a government
building or attend a ballgame,” Mr. Brown said. “But folks who come here
illegally? They
just walk across the border. That’s wrong.”
The
advertising message from Mr. Brown seemed surprising for several
reasons. It collided with national Republican leaders’ moves to temper
the party’s views on immigration
after the 2012 election. And it was aired in nearly all-white New
Hampshire, some 2,000 miles from Mexico.
Even
so, it had a powerful impact, helping Mr. Brown survive a crowded
primary and make the race with the incumbent senator, Jeanne Shaheen,
competitive. It also prodded
Ms. Shaheen to distance herself from President Obama’s planned
executive orders on immigration.
“Scott
did something that the national party was actually arguing against,”
said Eric Fehrnstrom, a consultant for Mr. Brown in that race. “It
worked for him.’’
Mr.
Brown narrowly lost that contest, 51 percent to 49, but his campaign
recognized something that the national party seemed for months to miss:
The party’s base was deeply
angry, and white working-class voters, like those in New Hampshire,
felt neglected by and alienated from the political system.
“That
message was ripe for Mr. Trump to come in and run with it,” said David
N. Bossie, the president of the conservative group Citizens United. And,
with Mr. Trump’s
combination of celebrity and command of a media microphone, Mr. Bossie
said, he is the perfect person to capitalize on it.
Mr.
Trump has emerged as the champion of those voters who feel neglected,
in large part by viscerally amplifying Mr. Brown’s message that the
borders are not secure, America
is not safe from terrorism, the economy is lagging and immigrants are
poised to do harm to the United States. Mr. Brown, as it happens,
endorsed Mr. Trump this week.
These
themes, which have helped propel Mr. Trump’s ascension in the polls,
might also help him regain his trajectory after a loss in Iowa.
Immigration is one of the few
issues where Mr. Trump is to the right of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas,
and one where he can puncture Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as too
moderate.
Mr.
Trump’s first wave of ads framed illegal immigration as a national
security concern in stark terms, and he has used this argument to shape
the Republican debate for
months.
“Now,
they’re all trying to be tougher than me — nobody can be tougher than
me,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday night at the rally in New Hampshire where
Mr. Brown endorsed him.
The
Brown campaign was not alone in deploying a focus on national security
and immigration in the midterm races two years ago. Other Republicans
sensed the growing anxieties
of voters: Representative David Brat of Virginia beat Eric Cantor, the
incumbent congressman and a member of the Republican leadership, in
their 2014 primary race by combining worries about immigration and
terrorism. And Senator Thom Tillis used a similar
message in North Carolina.
Soon
after Mr. Brat’s victory, attempts at a comprehensive immigration
overhaul crumbled in Congress, and Mr. Obama announced plans for
executive actions to halt some
deportations. National Republicans became less fearful of their
candidates’ talking about illegal immigration at that point, and it was a
topic in several races.
Still,
after the 2014 midterms in November, Republicans and business leaders
believed they had found a way to placate voters’ fears and contain the
insurgencies, a conclusion
that turned out to be far from correct.
“Trump
is hitting a message that has been building in the country for some
time,” said Greg Mueller, a Republican strategist who advised the
conservative commentator Patrick
Buchanan when he beat President George Bush in the Republican primary
in New Hampshire in 1992. Candidates positioning themselves otherwise in
the primary, such as by supporting immigration reform, he added, “may
as well be committing political suicide.”
In
New Hampshire, concerns about immigration have long been a potent
weapon. Mr. Buchanan talked about building “the Buchanan fence” along
the southern tier of the country.
“Must
we absorb all the people of the world into our society, and submerge
our historic character as a predominantly Caucasian Western society?”
said Mr. Buchanan to the
columnist George Will at the time.
More
recently, Gov. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, who is challenging
Senator Kelly Ayotte for her seat, was among the first Democratic
governors to call for a halt to
Syrian refugees coming into the country after the terrorist attacks in
Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.
“I’m
surprised nobody picked up on it prior to him,” Michael Dunbar, a local
conservative activist, said of Mr. Trump. Mr. Dunbar led the “Draft
Trump” movement in 1987,
when the real estate developer was promoting his book “The Art of the
Deal.”
“The
border has been an issue for a decade,” Mr. Dunbar said, comparing
concerns about illegal border crossings to worries about a terrorist
threat. “I live in a small
town in Hampton, New Hampshire. I don’t worry a whole lot about
terrorists. But if I got to a city, I’ve got to be aware here. I
shouldn’t have to do that in my country.”
Mr.
Brown was among the first to use the immigration issue in ads in Senate
contests in the 2014 midterm races. He ultimately aired three spots,
all of them insinuating
a threat in more muted tones than Mr. Trump has used.
“Scott
was careful to stress the need for compassion when addressing the
immigration crisis and avoided using caustic immigration rhetoric so
that he didn’t alienate independent
voters who can tip the balance of New Hampshire elections,” said Ryan
Williams, a Republican strategist who worked on the Brown campaign. But
by the end of the race, Mr. Brown said he was voicing “rational fears”
of voters, and yoked immigration concerns to
the Ebola outbreak in the fall of 2014.
For
voters concerned about illegal immigration, the issue cuts against a
rigid view in New Hampshire that laws are meant to be enforced.
In
interviews, some of Mr. Trump’s ardent supporters have frequently
mentioned immigration as a reason for supporting him, even echoing those
ads from Mr. Brown.
“I’m
a Polish immigrant; my parents came over from Poland in the 1930s, and
my grandparents,’’ said Carol Le Lacheur, the former daughter-in-law of a
local official in
Lowell, Mass., just over the border from New Hampshire, who attended a
rally of 7,500 people for Mr. Trump. “They taught us to work hard, to be
loyal to this country.” Her family, she said, came to the country
legally.
Mr.
Fehrnstrom, Mr. Brown’s former consultant, called the Republican Party
leaders’ redirection on immigration after the 2012 election a huge
miscalculation.
“They
told their candidates to support a pathway to citizenship for illegal
immigrants as a way to increase outreach to Hispanics,’’ said Mr.
Fehrnstrom, who also advised
Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. “And candidates who followed
that advice are struggling. Donald Trump went in the opposite direction
and he has total command of the 2016 field.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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