U.S. Born Majority Backs SB 1070 in New California Field Poll, 54 to 41 Percent

At San Diego Union-Tribune, "State's voters tilt toward Arizona law: Field Poll results show 49% in favor, 45% oppose illegal-immigration move." Support has dipped slightly across all respondents, but the findings among American-born voters are revealing:

U.S.-born voters favored the Arizona law 54 percent to 41 percent; just 28 percent of those born outside the U.S. said they backed it.

One of the strongest single blocs of support came from registered Republican voters, 77 percent of whom said they favored the law. Meanwhile, 62 percent of Democrats said they disagreed with the law, and nonpartisans were about evenly divided.

Only about one in four voters who said they preferred the gubernatorial bid by Attorney General Jerry Brown , a Democrat, or a re-election bid by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., approved of the Arizona law. But four of five supporters of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, the Republican running for governor, or former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina , the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, said they backed the law.

Whitman has come out against the Arizona law; Fiorina favors it. Voters who are undecided in the governor’s race support the new law and undecided voters in the Senate race are divided with 49 percent in support.

Opinions were strong on both sides. Of the 49 percent of voters who said they approve of the Arizona law, 37 percent said they approved strongly. Likewise, of the 45 percent who disapproved of the law, 34 percent said they disapproved strongly.

The poll shows that most California voters continue to believe illegal immigrants have a negative effect overall on the state, but that view has steadily diminished for three decades. Fifty-six percent of those surveyed said illegal immigrants have an unfavorable effect on the state, compared with 75 percent in 1982 and 67 percent in 1994.

See the full results, "CALIFORNIA VOTERS SPLIT ALMOST EVENLY ABOUT ARIZONA’S NEW ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION LAW. OPINIONS DIVIDE SHARPLY ALONG PARTISAN AND RACIAL/ETHNIC LINES. ISSUE HAS BIG EFFECT ON SUPPORTERS OF CANDIDATES IN GOVERNOR AND SENATE RACES."

In related news, it turns out USA Today 's weekend edition reports that immigration is "just now" emerging as a top national priority for November. See, "Immigration re-enters national debate." The issue framing is obviously lame, although the report's not too bad actually. For example, this passage reinforces the Field Poll's findings on the deep political divisions, and especially noteworthy is that Hispanic constituencies are nearly unanimous pro-open borders:

This week, nine state attorneys general — including three Republicans running for governor — filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing Arizona in its fight with the federal government. Latino groups, meanwhile, unveiled polling data showing the Arizona law has infuriated the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc.

All of this is happening at a time when, according to federal government statistics, illegal immigration is down and "the border is safer than it has ever been," says Doris Meissner, a former U.S. immigration commissioner now with the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank.

That's not how it feels to people living there, Giffords argues. She points to reports of drug-related beheadings and lynchings in Mexico, just a few miles from some of her constituents' homes. "The crime in Mexico has created a different kind of fear than we have seen before," Democratic pollster Lisa Grove says.

Elsewhere in the nation, immigration appears to be serving as a stand-in for even deeper anxieties.

"The problem of illegal immigration only compounds the frustration people are feeling with the federal government," Barletta says.

Pollsters are tracking two trends that appear to be on a collision course for the Nov. 2 general election:

•A wide majority of Americans consistently say they favor the Arizona law. Separate Quinnipiac surveys in the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania showed overwhelming support for the measure. "This is a very powerful issue," says Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll.

•Hispanics are equally unanimous — on the other side. A survey released this week by a coalition of Hispanic groups found that eight in 10 Hispanic voters oppose the Arizona law. Arturo Vargas of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials said those numbers track "a dramatic shift in Latino attitudes" that his organization found in a separate survey, to be released next week.