Immigration Hardline Politics Fail Again: A Look at the GOP Arizona Primary

I have been taking a special interest in what the exit polls are saying about how voters view the illegal immigration problem in the GOP primary. There seems to be a trend that indicates the hardline "deport them all" positon is no where near the majority. At best in some states it is 50 percent deport them all versus 50 percent for some combination of pathway and temporary worker. However im many states the deport them all viewpoint dips. Again this is just looking at GOP primary voters.

Let us look at exit polls in the border state of Arizona. Needless to say the issue is hot here. I have been saying that if one looks at the results of elections here that one comes to the follwoing conclusion:

(1) Voters want something be done about illegal immigration(we can see this through the ballot issues that get approved).
(2) That despite this that voters are wary of the extremes. That is the "open border folks" and the postion that is taken from the hardliners. We can see this by the defeat of two GOP folks that took the hardline and the fact that Rep Flake who is for Comp reform has not problem getting reelected.

Now let us look at the GOP Primary numbers.
GOP Arizona Presidential Primary Voters Views on illegal immigration
Deport Them-(44%_
Temporary Worker -(29%)
Path to Citizenship-(24%)

Now as always there is a mix here of actual views. Many times people that support Temp worker and Pathway envision a mixture of the two. Also there is a percentage of Deport them all that of course have some exceptions in their mind as to this policy.

Now this issue has benn BOILING HERE. However if one listened to the blogs, Lou Dobbs, etc you would think 80 percent of the GOP in Arizona would want to deport all the illegals big and small out of Arizona. However, as we saw evidence of in the 06 primaries, this is not the case. Despite this issue being hot for 4 years and having such things as the minutemen and other groups the seport them all postion is a minority postion among GOP voters.

Further we are seeing that McCain(SO called Mr. Annesty himself) gets a healthy portion of voters that very much are for deport them all. Here he got 33% of that group.

How did it turn out for the individuals running

Huckabee- Largely a non factor in AZ for obvious reasons
Pathway -8 percent
Temp Worker-8 percent
Deport-9 percent

McCain-
Pathway-63 percent
Temp Worker-53 percent
Deport-33 percent

Romney-
Pathway-23 percent
Temp Worker-28 percent
Deport-46 percent

One benefit we shall have with Huckaee going forward till March 4th is that we shall be able to look at Texas. I suspect that the exits will be very similar as we see here in Arizona.

THese exit polls gives us another look at what the GOP voter is thinking on this issue. As we go along from state to state it is apparent(at least to me) that a no compromise position is not only not wise but it is really not a vote getter.