During Virginia’s gubernatorial race last year, Republican Ed Gillespie ran a racist campaign trying to scare white voters about so-called “sanctuary cities” (which are non-existent in the commonwealth), and comparing immigrant families to gang members. It ultimately backfired—according to polling, “voters across all demographics were very aware the campaign had become heavily racialized and this moved them away from Gillespie and towards” his opponent, Democrat Ralph Northam. Northam won but Republicans refused to learn their lesson, narrowly passing a political stunt again meant to fear monger about nonexistent “sanctuary cities.” This week, Northam vetoed it:
Northam suggested the legislation would require Virginia cities and towns to shoulder the burden of enforcing federal immigration law, either by deputizing local police or by holding undocumented inmates in local lockups. He called the measure “unnecessary and divisive.”
“This legislation would force local law enforcement agencies to use precious resources to perform functions that are the responsibility of federal immigration enforcement agencies,” Northam wrote in a statement accompanying the veto. “It also sends a chilling message to communities across Virginia that could have negative impacts on public safety.”
“Governor Ralph Northam’s veto of a Republican anti-immigrant legislation,” said Matt Hildreth, political director for immigrant rights organization America’s Voice, “shows why elections matter and how leaders should stand up to the ongoing political attacks attempting to stoke fear over immigrants.” Another Republican gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey, Kim Guadagno, pulled the same anti-immigrant stunt and lost in a landslide. “Still,” America’s Voice notes, “Republicans are expected to run on xenophobia this fall, in part because they have so little else to run on” and, like in Virginia and New Jersey, could pay the price come November:
As statewide gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey show, the Republican attacks on immigrants may backfire, in part by mobilizing voters of color and in part by branding the GOP candidate as intolerant and driving away many white voters in the process. This dynamic applied in both Virginia and New Jersey, despite the different ways the two Democratic candidates handled anti-sanctuary cities attacks and the larger topic of immigration.
In the recent Pennsylvania special election—a district where Donald Trump win by 20 points—Republican Rick Saccone stuck to the anti-immigrant agenda, attacking Democrat Conor Lamb over so-called “sanctuary cities.” Lamb, however, “maintained support for legal status for undocumented immigrants and protections for Dreamers,” and won. America’s Voice also notes anti-immigrant campaigns failing at the local level: “In Nassau County [Long Island], a mailer paid for by state Republicans said the Democratic candidate for county executive, Laura Curran, would ‘roll out the welcome mat’ for the violent gang MS-13.” Curran also won.