Last night the Democratic Party capped off a year of impressive electoral victories with Eileen Higgins double digit win as Mayor of Miami. This marks the first time a Democrat has been elected to the position in 30 years.
While it is dangerous to read too much into any one race, the string of victories that Democrats have had this year is remarkable; they include wins in the Virginia and New Jersey Governors races, the Virginia Lt. Governor and Attorney General, the Georgia Public Service Commission, the state legislatures in Virginia and New Jersey, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and state legislative seats in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Mississippi, and Georgia, where just last night Eric Gisler beat a Republican in a district Trump won by double digits. This does not even include victories at the municipal level where Democrats have won mayoral seats in cities from New York and Omaha to Detroit, San Antonio, and now Miami.
Arguably the main issue that has helped push Democrats to victory is the economy - or to use Trump’s least favorite word, affordability. The President’s virulent distaste for the term was on full display in Pennsylvania last night where he once against described it as a Democratic “hoax.” So far, however, his attempts to shift blame have fallen flat. Today the Realclear polling average has him 15 points under water on the economy.
The economy is not the only issue that he is underwater on. According to Realclear, Americans also disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration (50-47%). This is notable because it is a change from where he was just a few months ago and it is an issue on which he has traditionally been strong. Moreover, as the Miami race underscores, the impact of his sagging numbers on immigration is starting to be felt down-ballot.
In Miami, Mayor-Elect Higgins made the ICE raids central to her campaign. She described the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants as inhumane and a scourge on her community. As she said of the ICE raids occurring in her Hispanic-majority city, “there’s a level of fear, and I have never experienced that before.”
What has hurt Trump most on immigration is the ruthlessness and inhumanity of the ICE raids which many voters see not only as unnecessary and unprecedented but also as a violation of his promise to focus on the “worst of the worst.” Even ICE’s own data shows that more than half of those arrested in raids this year have no criminal record - instead these are our friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc.
This is also confirmed by horrifying stories, such as that of 19 year old Babson College student, Any Lucia Lopez Belloza who was detained and shackled at Boston airport when she was trying to fly home to visit her parents in Texas over the Thanksgiving break.
It is also supported by reports, such as the one released by Amnesty International this week. Entitled “Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State, Human Rights Violations at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome in Florida,” it details harrowing stories of human rights violations, abuse, cruel conditions, and in some cases torture. As Amnesty notes:
The research concluded that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are living in inhuman conditions… People reported being always shackled when they were outside their cage. Other treatment those detained have endured amounts to torture, including being put in the “box”, described as a 2×2 foot cage-like structure people are put in as punishment – sometimes for hours at a time exposed to the elements with hardly any water – with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
These types of stories are not without consequence and the results are just beginning to be seen in the polls and at the ballot box.
