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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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Democrats are making Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) a centerpiece of their midterm messaging, seeking to capitalize on voter anger over President Donald Trump’s aggressive mass deportation agenda.
But this strategy is not without risks.
While many voters express unease with ICE’s conduct and the agency has become a potent flashpoint in Democratic primaries, polling consistently shows that voters remain more focused on the economy, inflation and the cost of living than on immigration.
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Public anger over ICE tactics may energize Democratic primary voters and immigrant communities as Democrats seek to reclaim the House and Senate in November, but surveys suggest affordability remains the more dominant concern—and one where Republicans hold an advantage on border security, raising questions about whether Democrats risk emphasizing an issue where they are less competitive heading into the general election.
In Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, ICE has emerged as a central dividing line between Democratic primary candidates Manny Rutinel and Shannon Bird. Rutinel has positioned himself as more aggressively opposed to ICE, while Bird has emphasized electability and policy-specific reforms, including proposals to ban ICE agents from using masks, require body cameras, and restrict enforcement in sensitive locations.
The race has also featured attacks over Bird’s past votes on state bills limiting cooperation with ICE, which she has disputed as a misleading characterization of her record.
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ICE became a visible issue in several New Jersey Democratic contests this year, though its electoral impact varied by district.
In New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, progressive organizer Analilia Mejia won both the February Democratic special primary and the April special election to replace Mikie Sherrill's old seat. Mejia, a former ally of independent Senator Bernie Sanders, openly supported abolishing ICE and ran as an outspoken critic of Trump-era immigration enforcement. Her victory over former Representative Tom Malinowski was widely viewed as a sign of progressive energy inside the Democratic base, though the race was also heavily shaped by outside spending and divisions over Israel and Gaza.
In New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, Democrat Rebecca Bennett won the June primary and will face Republican Representative Tom Kean Jr. in one of the country’s key swing-seat races. While immigration and criticism of ICE surfaced in broader Democratic messaging statewide, Bennett’s campaign focused more heavily on affordability, health care and government accountability than on immigration enforcement itself.
In Illinois’ Democratic Senate primary to replace incumbent Dick Durbin, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Juliana Stratton, and Robin Kelly all routinely criticized ICE and made it a core component of their campaigns.
The ad-tracking firm AdImpact found that references to ICE increased in early 2026 broadcast advertising. Two-thirds of TV ads in the final month of the Illinois Senate Democratic primary mentioned ICE, while almost a quarter of Democratic campaign TV ads nationally over the same period referenced the agency, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Anti-ICE messaging may work in Democratic primaries, especially where voters are already angry about immigration raids, shootings involving federal agents, or masked enforcement operations.
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A May 2026 Marquette Law School national survey asked U.S. adults to name the most important issue facing the country.
Inflation and cost of living ranked first at 37 percent, followed by the economy at 19 percent, while immigration and border security trailed far behind at 6 percent. The same poll, conducted with a margin of error of roughly 3 to 4 percentage points, also measured which party voters trust more on key issues. Republicans led Democrats by 19 percentage points on immigration and border security, while Democrats held smaller advantages on inflation and the broader economy.
The Marquette survey also highlights the strategic tension for Democrats. While Trump’s overall approval rating stood at 38 percent, with 62 percent disapproving, his strongest issue remained border security, where 48 percent approved and 52 percent disapproved. On immigration more broadly, he remained underwater but closer to parity, with 44 percent approval and 56 percent disapproval. That suggests that even as his overall standing weakens, immigration remains one of his comparatively strongest political areas.
There is also evidence that ICE itself is still unpopular. A January Marquette poll found 40 percent of adults approved of ICE’s job performance and 60 percent disapproved, with Republicans approving and Democrats and independents opposed. The agency's reputation suffered after federal immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge.
While immigration remains politically salient, particularly in shaping perceptions of parties and candidates, day-to-day economic concerns are playing a larger role in voting decisions.
Surveys of Latino voters in early 2026 found economic concerns consistently outranking immigration as a top priority heading into the midterms. A UnidosUS bipartisan poll of approximately 3,000 registered Latino voters found that the cost of living, jobs, and inflation ranked ahead of immigration among voters' concerns, as economic anxiety continued to dominate Latino voters' political outlook.
About two-thirds of Hispanic voters surveyed said the country is headed in the wrong direction, at 68 percent, while 66 percent said Trump and congressional Republicans are not focused on improving the economy.
About 67 percent of Latino voters said they disapproved of Trump’s job performance, with a majority disapproval recorded in every geographic area surveyed, including Florida at 51 percent. The polling also found that one in four Latino voters who backed Trump in 2024 said they would not vote for him again, up from 9 percent in April 2025 and 13 percent in November 2025.
Respondents cited the cost of living and inflation as the top drivers of that shift at 44 percent, followed by immigration enforcement in U.S. cities at 33 percent, job and wage stagnation at 26 percent, and the war in Iran at 25 percent, suggesting economic pressures remain the dominant concern even as immigration continues to factor into voters’ views.
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Immigration matters to voters, but it is typically secondary to economic concerns.
Sarah Pierce, director of social policy at Third Way, told Newsweek that Democrats risk misjudging voter priorities if immigration dominates their messaging, but cautioned against sidelining the issue altogether.
“Immigration should not be Democrats’ first or only message to voters because it is not their top concern,” she said, adding that “ignoring it is also a mistake.”
Pierce said Democrats “cannot allow Republicans to be the only party offering a vision” on immigration, arguing that criticism of what she described as a “reckless and deadly approach to enforcement” must be paired with “a forward-looking plan for smart, targeted immigration enforcement that keeps communities safe.”
With control of the House likely to hinge on a narrow set of races, the coming months will test whether Democrats can strike that balance, or whether Republicans succeed in pulling the political conversation back to border security, where they remain stronger.
Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, told Newsweek that Democrats risk mistaking primary dynamics for vote moods at a general election. “We keep learning the obvious lesson that what plays well in primaries is not necessarily where most voters are,” he said, adding that both parties are often “pulled to extremes” as a result.
Matt A. Barreto, president of BSP Research, a Democratic polling firm that has worked for the Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz presidential campaigns, told Newsweek that it is important to distinguish between primary and general election dynamics.
Candidates in primaries often “play to more polarized partisan issues to try to win over base voters,” he said, arguing that it is “not surprising to see candidates really hammer home anti-ICE and pro-immigrant messaging.”
Barreto said public backlash over ICE overreach in Democrat-run cities, including Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Chicago, had made the issue a political liability for Trump.
"I think in Democratic primaries it can be smart for candidates to lean in on anti-ICE messaging, but it should not be their primary or sole campaign issue, and from what I have seen, there are not any candidates who are only running on this message," Barreto said.
He added that most Democratic candidates appear to be “striking the right balance” by also emphasizing affordability and inflation, and predicted that as the general election approaches, Democrats will “run heavily on affordability, inflation, and health care costs” while continuing to highlight what he described as Trump’s “executive overreach and authoritarian tendencies,” with ICE remaining part of that broader argument.
Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant and author, told Newsweek that Democrats risk overlooking their strongest political argument.
“While immigration is a serious concern for our community, there is not now nor has there ever been a poll showing any concern affecting the entire Latino community more than affordability,” he said.
"Why Democrats seem incapable of focusing on the best issue for them heading into the midterms remains a complete mystery."
For Democrats, the larger midterm question may be less whether to talk about ICE and more how much of their message to devote to it. The available polling suggests a narrow path: criticize overreach and push accountability measures, while keeping affordability and the economy at the center of the campaign.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Toby Meyjes and Sam Wilson.
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