'Real sour aftertaste': Swing-state Republicans fear Trump policy will 'backfire'

U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One upon arrival at Pope Army Airfield, in North Carolina, U.S., June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Republicans in North Carolina fear voters will be left with a “real sour aftertaste” as President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown roils the state.
“Is the price of doing this worth it?” asked P Edwin Peacock III, a moderate Republican in Charlotte. “I don’t see this cloud moving away [from] what will be in the voters’ minds.”

As Politico reports, “Some North Carolina Republicans are worried President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in the battleground state could backfire."

After focusing his immigration raids largely in blue states, the Trump administration recently turned to the Charlotte, NC area as “the first test for whether the White House’s strategy can hold up in a purple state,” Politico reports. And with next year’s North Carolina Senate race heating up, Republicans will likely face a key “tension at the center of the president’s immigration agenda.”

“The White House’s message, since January, has tied illegal immigration to violent crime in U.S. cities,” Politico reports. “But immigration officials are simultaneously under sustained pressure from the White House to increase arrests and deportation numbers, an effort that requires targeting immigrants well beyond violent criminal offenders — potentially treacherous territory for swing-state Republicans.”

Former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory fears the optics of recent raids in Charlotte “may hurt the GOP on an issue it has long dominated,” according to Politico.

“Republicans had the upper hand on immigration, as long as they were going after the criminals and the gangs, but I think they’re losing the upper hand on that issue because of the apparent disjointed implementation of arrest,” McCrory said. “From a PR and political standpoint, for the first time, immigration is maybe having a negative impact on my party.”

North Carolina-based GOP pollster Patrick Sebastian warned the “narrative” of U.S. officials deporting working immigrants who are not breaking other laws "has gotten more play over the past week, and that could be a problem for Republicans.”

As Politico reports, “One GOP strategist working on races in North Carolina, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said there’s a risk that the picture of a citizen being separated from their family, rather than the arrests of unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, will stick.”

“You don’t know what the enduring image is going to be in voters’ minds,” the anonymous pollster said.

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