Even Trumpies struck by declining support for immigration policies

Axios - President Trump's team recently reviewed private GOP polling that showed support for his immigration policies falling. The results, reflected in public surveys, bolstered internal concern about the administration's confrontational enforcement tactics....

• Now, as the chaotic scenes from Minnesota play out around the clock on TV and social media, Axios has learned that some Trump advisers quietly are talking about "recalibrating" the White House's approach — though it's unclear what changes Trump would embrace, if any.

The worries in part of Trump's brain trust are the first signs of internal second-guessing his controversial ICE enforcement tactics.

• The private polling suggested a rupturing of the coalition of independent, moderate and minority voters who were key parts of Trump's victory in 2024. Such voters will play a big role in determining whether Republicans keep their slim House majority in November's midterms....

A top Trump adviser told Axios: "I wouldn't say he's concerned about the policy. He wants deportations. He wants mass deportations. What he doesn't want is what people are seeing. He doesn't like the way it looks. It looks bad. So he's expressed some discomfort at that ... There's the right way to do this. And this doesn't look like the right way."

The internal GOP polling that alarmed some Trump insiders was completed at the end of December, days before an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.

60% of independent voters and 58% of undecided voters said Trump was "too focused" on deporting illegal immigrants, the poll viewed by Trump's team found... More