WASHINGTON — Mark Twain credited Benjamin Disraeli with the line about “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Disraeli probably never said it. The line is still true, and it holds for a poll more than for most things. A poll catches a thousand people on the phone on a Tuesday and says it speaks for a country.
So be careful with every number in this column. Most district polls this cycle are paid for by one side or the other. “Independent” can mean a registered unaffiliated voter, a Republican who is embarrassed to say so, or a man who hangs up halfway through the call. Four years ago the national polls missed by the widest margin in decades.
Here is the thing, though. When a dozen pollsters with different methods and different paymasters keep finding the same answer, you stop calling it noise and start calling it news.
The number that keeps coming back
Fox News surveyed 1,211 registered voters from Sept. 11 to 14 and found 53% saying the administration’s immigration enforcement has gone too far. The rest split evenly at 23% between not far enough and about right. Among independents, the too-far figure was 60%. That was Fox News, not a Democratic firm. Pollsters for both parties ran the survey.
Fox also asked those voters why. Among those who said too far, 45% blamed excessive force and 49% said the wrong people are being picked up. Independents leaned slightly toward the force answer. So the complaint is about how enforcement is being done and who it is catching. It is not a complaint about the border itself.
Now the skeptic’s point, which matters. Fewer than one voter in ten named immigration as the country’s top issue. Cost of living drew 34% and the economy drew 14%. ICE is not going to decide this election alone. It is one grievance among several, and it points the same direction as the others: toward a White House that went too far and is not listening.
Abolition: not the center, but growing
Consider the phrase Republicans most want Democrats to say out loud, “abolish ICE.” In the fall of 2024 it was a fringe position. That is no longer true.