Immigration security

Trump Won on the Issues

In other words, when Americans didn’t view considerations of character or experience as decisive, they voted for Trump over Clinton by huge margins. They did so because four issues favored him—immigration, trade, the Supreme Court, and Obamacare—while no issues favored her.

Although the Republican establishment would rather not think about it, immigration was Trump’s central issue as he came out of nowhere to beat 16 challengers and win the Republican nomination. Those same establishment Republicans, like most Democrats, predicted that immigration would hurt Trump in the general election. It didn’t.

Believers in the “Blue Wall”—the mythical fortification that would allegedly protect Democratic candidates in the electoral vote—claimed that embracing open-borders immigration policies is the only way to win as demographics change (largely because of 40-plus years of open-borders immigration policies). This “Blue Wall” turned out to be about as formidable as the Maginot Line, and Trump breached it in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, and apparently Michigan.