For Trump, calls for whites' fears about race may prove more difficult to sell in 2020: Reuters / Ipsos poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) – US President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and his focus on white voters' grievances helped him win the 2016 elections. However, an analysis of public opinion by Reuters over the past four years suggests that Trump's white identity policy may be less effective during the 2020 election campaign.

The analysis comes as many critics of Trump's racist accusations about four minority women parliamentarians and the aftermath of a massive Hispanic shootout in El Paso, Texas, were quickly blamed on rhetoric. Of the president.

A Reuters / Ipsos survey of 4,436 US adults in July found that those who rejected racial stereotypes were more interested in voting in the 2020 general election than those who expressed a higher level of anti-black bias or anti-Hispanic.

In 2016, it was the reverse. Reuters' analysis shows that Trump's close victory came at a time when Americans with strong anti-Black views were the most politically engaged group. Although Reuters did not measure anti-Hispanic biases in 2016, political scientists say that those who express them overlap closely with those who have a bias against other racial minorities.

This year's poll found that 82% of Americans who think blacks and whites are equal, or blacks are superior to whites, have expressed a keen interest in voting in 2020, 7 points higher than those who firmly believe that whites are superior. to blacks.

"It seems that racist liberals are more energetic than racist intolerant," said University of Michigan political scientist Vincent Hutchings, who reviewed Reuters' findings. "It would be good news for the Democrats and bad news for the Republicans."

The July poll had a positive side for Trump. Most white Republicans approve of his performances. And over the last four years, they have become more and more adept at its fundamental problem: the extension of the wall along the US-Mexico border. Some 82% support it now, compared to 75% last year.

Trump is still as popular as ever with conservatives who dominate the predominantly white worker communities who helped him win in 2016, said political scientist Ashley Jardina of Duke University, who also reviewed the results. of the survey.

In his 2016 campaign, Trump focused on the grievances of white voters who feared the global economy would abandon them and wanted more restrictions on immigration. He used reprimands of Latino immigrants and downtown residents, usually blacks.

He then said that Mexicans were "murderers" and "rapists" and that last year again, Trump had labeled illegal immigration to the United States "invasion".

Trump has repeatedly stated that his words are not meant to be a factor of racial division. "I think my rhetoric … brings people together," he said earlier this month.

In response to analysis of Reuters polls, Daniel Bucheli, spokesman for Trump's re-election campaign, said the president "enjoys the broad support of various American groups and that this coalition of supporters, including minorities and voters for the first time, continues to grow every day. "

"There is something we just learned about President Trump, that's what he's calling as he is," Bucheli said, questioned about the Trump's recent comments on lawmakers and others.

The White House has not responded to a request for comment on the survey results.

DECLINING ANXIETY

The Reuters analysis also revealed that Americans were less likely to express feelings of racial anxiety this year and that they were more likely to sympathize with African Americans. This was also true for white Americans and whites with no university degree, who had largely supported Trump in 2016.

White Americans are also 19% more favorable to illegal immigrant citizenship and 4 points less favorable to the growing number of deportations, when their responses to the July poll were compared to a Reuters / Ipsos poll in January 2015.

The July 17-22 poll also found that 29% of whites agreed that "America must protect and preserve its white European heritage," down 7 points from a Reuters / Ipsos survey conducted in August 2017 and 9 points compared to another poll Reuters / Ipsos. in August 2018.

The survey also revealed that 17% of Whites and 26% of White Republicans strongly agree that "Whites are currently under attack in this country, a decrease of about 6 points and 8 points over to 2017.

Paula Ioanide, an American race relations expert at Ithaca College, said the poll's findings were consistent with her research, which found that racial concerns among whites had peaked during Barack Obama's presidency.

Some Caucasian Americans "do not feel as attacked as in 2016," Ioanide said. With Trump at the White House, "they saw some kind of approval of the kind of things they wanted: a restoration of the white identity they had previously felt was under attack."

Reuters and its survey partner, Ipsos, have developed a race survey with political scientists from the University of Michigan and Duke University. They asked a series of questions to measure respondents' perceptions of people of different racial backgrounds, the treatment of blacks and whites in America. their interest in voting in 2020.

ENLARGEMENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC OR REPUBLICAN GAP

Among whites who dominate the US electorate, the poll found a growing gap between how Democrats and Republicans see race.

In the latest survey, 28% of White Democrats said that "blacks are treated less equitably than whites" at their workplace, compared with 5% of white Republicans. About 59 percent of White Democrats said blacks were treated less equitably by the police, while 22 percent of white Republicans said they did.

The number of Democrats who said blacks were unfairly treated in the workplace and by police increased by 8 points and 11 points, respectively, since 2016. There was, however, virtually no change in White Republicans.

The white independents were more empathic towards the blacks than the white republicans, but less empathic than the democrats.

Michael Tesler, a political scientist at the University of California at Irvine, said Trump could influence many Democratic and independent Democrats in their vision of race.

"They may not care much about the race at first, and then they'll see Trump pushing the race so hard," he said. "And then they push back."

Samantha Burkes, 36, of Bullhead City, Arizona, said that it was exactly what she had done when she ranked Blacks well above whites in terms of intelligence, of work ethic, manners, peace and legality in the Reuters / Ipsos poll.

"I just wanted to say that I did not think Blacks were worse than whites," said Burkes, a white Democrat who plans to vote against Trump in 2020. "I do not care about me, really."