Trump tries to tone down the rhetoric on deportations ahead of the midterms: Half of voters still view them as excessive

With less than 90 days to go before the midterms, the White House has decided to lower the public profile of its mass deportation campaign. High-profile raids in Democratic cities such as New York or Los Angeles have become less frequent, and clashes with protesters and members of immigrant communities no longer dominate the media landscape that characterized the early months of the second Trump administration.

The change in strategy, however, has failed to reverse the damage that immigration policy has caused the Republican Party among voters. According to a new poll by POLITICO and the London-based firm Public First, half of Americans still believe the president's deportation campaign is too aggressive, a figure that includes nearly one in four voters who supported Trump in 2024, a statistic that highlights the major problem facing the GOP heading into November.

The figure has barely changed since the January and April polls, despite the wave of outrage sparked in recent months by the deaths of two U.S. citizens at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis.

The poll, conducted August 8–12, also reveals a rift within the Republican base itself. Trump voters who do not identify with the MAGA wing outnumber MAGA voters when it comes to describing the deportation campaign as excessive: 31% versus 15%. That divide is evident in other areas as well: only 35% of non-MAGA Republicans support both the goals and the way the immigration agenda has been implemented, compared with 64% among voters who most strongly identify with Trumpism.

Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist based in Arizona, summed it up this way: "Voters really did want border security, but they did not want to see abuelita taken away because she's been here for 40 years but without documentation."

The poll data itself confirms that a significant portion of the electorate has indeed noticed the shift. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed perceived at least a slight change in the way the Trump administration carries out deportations. Even so, that adjustment has not translated into greater support, as only 44% of those who noticed the change said it did not alter their trust in the government on immigration issues at all, while 30% said they trusted it even less.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres explained that the underlying contradiction persists despite the change in approach: "It's a lot easier just to go into an airport and find somebody who had overstayed a visa, had applied for an extension … and throw them into handcuffs and put them in a detention center. That's the easy way to get the numbers up, and a great way to thoroughly antagonize public opinion."

The White House, for its part, defended its record by citing spring polls showing 80% public support for the deportation of undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis emphasized that the mandate the American people gave Trump was precisely to remove criminals from the country, citing arrests related to child sexual abuse and drug possession as part of the administration's achievements.

The backlash isn't limited to the national level. Specific cases, such as Minnesota's Peggy Flanagan, show how the issue has become direct political ammunition in local campaigns after she used her victory speech in the Democratic Senate primary to attack her Republican rival for aligning with Trump's immigration policy.

Within the Republican Party, tensions persist between hardliners and those calling for a more selective approach. The most recent episode of this dispute occurred last month, when the current secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, temporarily suspended certain traffic-stop operations following a series of shootings linked to ICE agents. The move drew immediate criticism from the movement's most conservative voices, who interpreted it as a sign of weakness—pressure that ultimately forced the White House to reverse the decision.