Scott Walker 2016: How Trump Might Lift The Shadow From Candidate’s Campaign

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker announced his presidential run on Monday, tweeting “I’m in” after a long-anticipated announcement. Walker sits moderately low in polls that were taken before his announcement, but a post-announcement bump is bound to secure him a spot in the first round of debates between contenders for the Republican nomination. In April, I wrote about Scott Walker’s pendulum swing evolution on immigration and how it would erode his support from the business community, including conservative heavyweights like the Chamber of Commerce and David Koch. Specifically, I wrote that his policies put him at the “fringe” on the immigration debate.

In 2013, Walker said that he thought it “made sense” to enact a comprehensive reform plan that that would allow undocumented residents a path to citizenship after paying penalties. Critics call this “amnesty,” though the term is incorrect (it’s alternate punishment, not a pardon). At the time, many of Walker’s colleagues supported such a plan. In March of 2015, Walker admitted that he’d changed his position entirely: he no longer supports a path to citizenship for immigrants who have violated immigration law. Other presidential candidates like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) also wavered in their support for “amnesty,” though not as hard. (Rubio, for example, said he’d continue Deferred Action for existing recipients for a limited time while trying to increase border enforcement).

Then in April of 2015 Walker’s stated a new position. Not only is he set on kicking out those who violate immigration laws, he’s also intent on reducing the levels of legal immigration. Specifically, he argued that legal immigration numbers should drop during recessions.

“When it comes to legal immigration, the economy should drive things. And the number one priority in that process going forward should be American workers and American wages. When times are rough, the last thing we want to do is flood the market, put more workers in at a time when workers are unemployed, wages are low. We need to make sure we put American workers first,” Governor Walker said [in April] at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition Spring Kick-Off.

Jeb Bush, a Republican favored in the primary, had already called unauthorized immigration and “act of love.” He proposed comprehensive immigration reform with work permits for well-behaved immigrants who were in the country illegally. It seemed like we knew where the center was, especially when Hillary Clinton rejected Bush’s plan by promising a pathway to citizenship where he would allow only work permits.

Then, on June 16th Donald Trump entered the Republican primary. Trump called (most) Mexican immigrants “rapists” right out the gate in his announcement speech. He demanded a giant wall. He said that Mexico was stealing American jobs. Overnight, the perception of what is “fringe” seemed to change. Immigration was the elephant in the room for Scott Walker's Candidacy, but that elephant got saddled and ridden by Trump. For pro-immigrant voters, the fringe just got longer, but for some Republicans Trump may have widened what seems acceptable. Scott Walker and other far-right candidates seemed to dip while centrists like Jeb Bush have faired well in the polls, as the Christian Science Monitor pointed out earlier this month. The Monitor asked “Whose voters is [Trump] stealing?”

Trump is not a real candidate, but his immigration statements will find a home in the Republican Party, As FiveThirtyEight argues. Perhaps the question now is “Who will steal Trumps voters back?” Ted Cruz has been trying to soak up Trump’s anti-immigrant momentum. Yet the anti-immigrant vote also comes with a lot of baggage. I’ll leave you with another segment of my April article, which talks about the implications of Walker’s flip-flop.

[Walker’s announcement that he wanted to reduce legal immigration] was an anti-business bombshell, and it got him in trouble with conservatives. Why? Because Walker basically advocated increasing government control over the labor supply, a key import for technology and other industries. That runs against basic free-market principles. At the head of the pack was the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), a pro-business newspaper that’s supported Walker as governor on things like union busting. In their criticism, the WSJ said that Walker’s protectionist were anchored on an economic “fallacy.”

“Economists call this the lump of labor fallacy, which holds that the amount of available work is fixed. If one person gets a job, another loses it. But the addition of new workers into a market, especially skilled workers, can increase the productivity of companies in a way that expands the supply of work for everybody [....] Republicans used to understand this basic economic principle, but the politics of immigration is turning some of them into economists for the AFL-CIO,” the WSJ argued, referencing the anti-immigrant union.

Though Walker’s comments at the Iowa Faith and Freedom event didn’t specifically mention skilled workers (the speech was delivered after the WSJ article came out), earlier anti-immigration comments of Walker’s did. In particular, he indirectly indicated opposition to the current H-1B visa program, which gives work permissions to immigrants skilled in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) regardless of economic indicators. That won’t win him any endorsements from establishment Republicans, who swiftly condemned his position.

"I basically think that's poppycock," Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch told reporters in response to Walker’s comments on “protecting workers.”

"We want legal immigration [....] As a party we've always embraced immigrants coming here legally, following the rules. And it's enriched our country immeasurably. It's who we are. It's the fabric of our success," Ohio Sen. Rob Portman told Talking Points Memo.

“I think most statistics show that they fill part of the workforce that are much needed. We have, and I'm a living example of, the aging population. We need these people in the workforce legally," Arizona Sen. John McCain told reporters.