Obama plays the right cards for Democrats on immigration

A month after President Obama’s decision to defer deportation and offer work authorization to millions of undocumented immigrants, his action not only looks like a winner, but it also seems to be a fairly promising sign for Democrats after the disastrous midterm elections last month. This is not because Mr. Obama’s immigration decision has proved to be popular. In fact, it is, over all, unpopular. Polls show that a majority of adults oppose his plan. But as is the case on many issues, the politics of immigration reform are not simply about the issue’s popularity in national public opinion polls. They are also about intensity and coalitions: Who are the voters that really care about the issue, and how much do they matter? On immigration, the answer is fairly clear. Hispanic voters care a lot, and matter a lot. A Pew Research poll conducted last week showed that 81 percent of Hispanics supported the immigration action, as did 64 percent in a Gallup poll conducted between Nov. 24 and Dec. 8. And at the same time, there was not much evidence that the decision hurt Mr. Obama much among non-Hispanic voters. Now, it was hard for immigration to visibly damage Mr. Obama among non-Hispanic voters for the exact opposite reason that the issue helped him among Hispanic voters: His approval ratings among non-Hispanics were so low that policies would need to be particularly unpopular to drive them further down. But it is doubtful that it hurt Mr. Obama much among the voters who matter most to his party — the Democratic-leaning or persuadable voters who supported or considered supporting him in 2012, but are now disillusioned by his performance. Most of the people who strongly opposed Mr. Obama’s decision were probably Republican base voters. The balance of public polling data suggests that most persuadable voters are fairly sympathetic to Democratic views on immigration reform, even if they opposed Mr. Obama’s action. Even if many persuadable voters were outraged, the Republicans did not vigorously press their case. The issue will probably fade from memory, if it hasn’t already. Mr. Obama’s decision will eventually fade from the minds of Hispanic voters as well. But the longevity of the bump is probably less significant than its size and the fact that it happened. It may be a sign that Democratic-leaning voters who currently disapprove of Mr. Obama’s performance will come flocking back to the Democrats the moment the 2016 campaign arouses their partisanship. It is a sign that although these voters may be dissatisfied with Mr. Obama’s performance, they remain quite receptive to Democratic messages on the issues that brought them to the party in the first place. In a way, we’ve been here before. In the fall of 2011, after the debt ceiling debacle, Mr. Obama’s approval rating slipped to about the point where it is today. And his approval rating among Hispanic voters dropped to about where it was before his immigration decision. Yet his overall approval rating would rise to 50 percent by Election Day, just a year later. His 71 percent showing among Hispanic voters, according to the exit polls, was even more than he won in 2008. The voters who traditionally lean Democratic, at least outside the South and coal country, returned to his side. The Obama campaign employed a diverse suite of messages to appeal to every facet of the Democratic coalition: contraception and same-sex marriage for young, secular and well-educated voters; Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital and the auto bailout for working-class voters; and, yes, deferred action for undocumented minors to appeal to Hispanic voters. Whether the next Democrat will reassemble the coalition that re-elected Mr. Obama remains to be seen. That said, Mr. Obama’s rebound among Hispanic voters may be a sign that the tactics that worked for the Obama campaign in 2012 might still work in 2016.