The Election Refuted Right-Wing Hysteria About a Great Replacement
Democrats’ drift toward Trump on immigration was a moral and political mistake
Among the rampant absurdities about immigration that spread from both obscure and prominent right-wing corners of the internet, the idea that the Biden-Harris administration was “importing” voters from the U.S. southern border to ensure that a Democrat wins the 2024 election was simultaneously the silliest and the most common. In addition to being a conspiracy theory, what made this idea especially obtuse is that there is nothing precluding the Republican Party from being politically competitive amidst high levels of immigration or from winning the votes of Hispanic citizens within the electorate.
Republicans have acted as if higher levels of immigration effectively condemned them to a status of permanent disempowerment—but the 2024 election is the best evidence to date that more immigration doesn’t guarantee Democratic victory. The fact that the Republican Party can achieve electoral success even when there are many immigrants in the electorate undercuts one of the most pervasive right-wing justifications for immigration-restrictionism today: that Republicans should oppose immigration on the grounds that it exclusively serves the political interests of the Democratic Party.
Immigrants Defy Republican Narratives
On a recent episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, Vice President-elect JD Vance said that immigration would permanently tilt the balance of power in favor of the Democrats. Vance spoke of the Biden-Harris position on immigration leading to “the end of democracy,” creating a state in which the GOP will “never win a national election in my lifetime,” even as his running mate was set to make historic gains among Hispanic voters, many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants. Elon Musk, tapped to also prominently feature in the new Trump administration, made similar claims:
Very few Americans realize that, if Trump is not elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he is the only way to save it! Let me explain: If even 1 in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about two million new legal voters in four years. The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20 thousand votes. That means if the ‘Democratic’ Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states!
But setting aside the fact that undocumented immigrants have little to no path for citizenship, the historical evidence shows that GOP performance improves with more immigration. So there are no data behind these fears.
Although the immigrant share isn’t associated with a stronger performance of either party in presidential elections, there is a relationship between stronger Republican performance and a larger immigrant share of the U.S. population. The Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for 83% of the years from 1935 to 1994 when the immigrant share of the U.S. population was below 10%. Since 1995, Democrats have not controlled either house of Congress 53% of the time.
Republicans have performed much better during the high immigration periods of U.S. history. Why? Not only do new populations assimilate into the political mainstream, but the more Democrats compete and cater to the votes of naturalized citizens, the more U.S.-born voters drift toward Republicans. So, when Vance or Musk play up fears about all the votes they won’t get, they’re not accounting for a corresponding increase in votes they will get from native populations.
But even the idea that naturalized immigrants are electorally out of reach is unfounded: a National Partnership for New Americans survey concluded that ahead of the 2024 election naturalized citizens in swing states and in California pledged to go 53.6% in favor of Kamala Harris and 38.3% for Trump. Hardly “end of democracy” stuff.
Additionally, the immigrant share has been high when the unionized share of the labor force has been low, possibly because immigrants undermine unionization. Until recently, unions were historically the base of the Democratic Party. Any benefit from naturalized citizens did not outweigh losses among the unionized population.
Democrats Accepted Republican Premises on Immigration
Does this mean that Democrats needed to be even more anti-immigrant to win? While that was Kamala Harris’ assessment, her (and Biden’s) immigration gambit backfired. Gallup polls show that from 2019 to 2023 the share of voters saying immigration should be decreased grew just six points and remained a minority. Even though illegal immigration fell sharply in 2024, the share of Americans saying that immigration should be restricted suddenly jumped 14 points in June 2024.
Here’s what happened: Harris and Biden endorsed a bill to “shut the border” in 2024, which they reiterated as their position repeatedly before finally acting unilaterally to ban asylum in June 2024. It’s no surprise that when the heads of both parties endorse immigration restrictions, more people move toward that position. We have seen similar swings on other issues, like trade, when the head of a party (Trump) suddenly endorses a different view. Rather than neutralizing Trump’s immigration attacks, Harris’ flip validated them.
As I explained in this short documentary about Harris and immigration, voters were told by Harris and Biden that we should want Trump-style policies at the border. But if Trump’s policies are what we need, why would voters elect Harris instead of Trump himself? It was such a poor strategy that Harris had to stammer her way through interviews on the topic and then try to distract Trump about crowd sizes in the debate to avoid letting him make the point.
Even if immigration was never going to be a strong point for Harris, she should have tried to attack Trump on his weak points to make it less of a liability. Harris had lines of attack against Trump, but never used them:
Trump’s policies led to less security, more evasions of the Border Patrol, more criminals crossing, and more criminals being released. She never made a real effort to criticize his record.
When asked why she had once supported banning prosecutions for illegal entry, she refused to mention she did so only because Trump was using the authority to separate little children from their parents—a policy that was not popular with Americans.
She should have mentioned that Trump’s family separation prosecutions were causing sex offenders to go unprosecuted.
Harris should have done more to differentiate herself from other Democrats who support New York City’s insane shelter policy and release policy for criminal noncitizens.
Harris and Biden refused to make a positive economic case for immigration. Harris cited economic analyses saying that her administration would accumulate less debt or more economic growth but never mentioned that this was largely because those models assumed higher immigration rates. The Congressional Budget Office concluded in July 2024 that the recent immigration will increase U.S. GDP by $9 trillion and reduce deficits by $1 trillion over a decade. But since Harris had committed to her anti-immigration strategy, she could never attack Trump’s mass deportation plans as bad economics.
Reduce Illegal Immigration By Increasing Legal Immigration
President Biden did not go nearly far enough in encouraging legal immigration. An arbitrary limit on legal immigration is the root cause of illegal immigration and border chaos. Despite Republican talking points, Harris was never in charge of immigration policy. But when asked what she would have done differently from Biden, rather than saying, “There is not a thing that comes to mind,” she should have said, “I would have required people to come legally and created clear ways for them to do so from Day 1 of my administration.” People want order at the border, but that’s achieved by implementing a sensible legal migration system, not by stopping immigration altogether.
Republican panic over a Great Replacement of white voters by immigrants, and the corollary view that openness to immigration inexorably leads to permanent Democratic control, is contradicted by American political history and refuted by our most recent election results. Democratic shifts toward Republican restrictionism is also the wrong solution to the effectiveness of GOP messaging on immigration; Democrats ought to propose more immigration, not less. As the pathway for legal immigration improves, the political salience of illegal immigration goes down. The truth is, both parties can compete in a country with more immigrants, but no matter the politics, immigration remains important for the United States and the world.
An earlier version of this article first appeared on Cato Institute’s Cato at Liberty blog.
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"Republicans have acted as if higher levels of immigration effectively condemned them to a status of permanent disempowerment—but the 2024 election is the best evidence to date that more immigration doesn’t guarantee Democratic victory."
I'd rephrase this as "Democrats in online spaces picked up a vulgar folk version of Teixeira/Judis's The Emerging Democratic Majority and spoke for a decade about how old, white voters would be replaced by a rainbow coalition that would vote Democratic forever, and ambitious Republicans ran with it and made it sound like a plan Democrats were executing rather than a general demographic argument."
Still bad faith action on the part of Republicans, but it wasn't like they dreamed up the "lots of immigration forever = permanent Democratic majority" idea, they took that from what Democrats were saying.
My explanation for why immigrants, especially Hispanics, trended toward Republicans in 2024. Just like white people voters who are doing economically well don't really care what happens to anyone else as long as it doesn't happen to them. Also a huge portion of Hispanics perceive themselves as white and therefore tend toward whatever is trending in the rest of the white community.
In Florida the Hispanic communities have earned real power through the Republican Party. Also unaddressed is that racism is alive and well among Hispanics. Joining the White Party makes more sense than trying to compete within the Black Party for power.
Arabs, who might be concerned about Gaza, also understood that both candidates are tied to a policy toward Israel that will not change regardless of who is President, therefore voting for the party of perceived favorable economic policies was more powerful in getting their vote. Arab communities have always tended Republican--- at least among older generations of Arab immigrants.
Working class immigrants and blacks are found usually working side by side with working class whites. I suspect that the attitudes of working class whites has a greater influence on them than the elite "leaders" in their communities.
The fact is that for almost 100 years the two parties have done nothing that really effects the day to day lives of most Americans except at the margins. Economic ups and downs happen when either party is in power. Wars happen. We get to keep or give a few tax dollars regardless of who wins the election. Those who live paycheck to paycheck are voting for the one they feel good about and not because of his or her policies. They liked Clinton, Obama and Trump because of how they felt about them on the basic "gut" level. It is baked in that politicians are going to over-promise and under-deliver so policies are not a motivator. They felt sorry for Clinton being persecuted for lying about getting a blowjob in the Oval Office and they felt sorry for Trump's many legal woes. They don't understand, and have even been victims of, the "rule of law"--- and see the "rule of the jungle" at work on a daily basis.
"Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss." Pete Townsend