Iowans more likely to back Trump after ‘poisoning the blood’ rant: poll

A plurality of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers say former President Donald Trump’s recent comment that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” make them more likely to support him, a new poll shows.

A Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom survey found 42% said the statement made them more likely to caucus for Trump, while 28% said the rant made them less likely to back the 77-year-old.

Another 29% said the comment “did not matter,” and 2% were unsure.

Trump made the remarks to supporters at a Dec. 16 rally in Durham, NH, while heavily inflating the number of illegal immigrants that have entered the US since President Biden took office.

“When they let, I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country, when they do that, we got a lot of work to do,” the 45th president said. “They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done.”

Politicians on both sides of the aisle have since denounced the rhetoric — even as Trump doubled down days later at a Waterloo, Iowa, rally.

“I don’t believe, as the former president said again yesterday, that immigrants are polluting our blood,” Biden responded in a Wednesday speech at the Wisconsin Black Chamber of Commerce in Milwaukee. “The economy and our nation are stronger when we tap into the full range of talents in this nation.”

Vice President Kamala Harris said in an interview later that night with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell that that people have “rightfully” found Trump’s words “similar to the language” of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Hitler’s 1925 autobiography-manifesto “Mein Kampf” speaks about the “poison” of “foreign blood” being introduced into the “national body” of Germany, which he said would dilute the “purity” of the Aryan race.

Trump has since said he “never read ‘Mein Kampf’” and argued that his comments were made “in a much different way,” adding that illegal immigration brought crime and disease across the border.

“I don’t know what this means with the blood stuff. I know people are trying to draw historical allusions. I don’t know if that what he meant,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is likely Iowa Republican voters’ second choice for president, according to the Des Moines Register/NBC/Mediacom poll.

“We need a nominee who’s going to be able to press the case against Biden’s failures without getting involved in, and stepping in it, or doing things that are going to divert attention,” he told Fox News.

“Because now the media is focused on, ‘What did he mean by that?’ instead of focusing on why Biden is failing.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is in third place behind DeSantis in Iowa, said the words were “more of the chaos and distraction we’re trying to get rid of.”

“We need to secure the border; we need to make sure that we start catch-and-deport instead of catch-and-release,” Haley told Fox News. “All of those things we need to do — and we can do it without the rhetoric.”

“Let’s fix the border without saying things that are gonna get people riled up,” she added.

Other Republicans mentioned family members who came to the US legally as immigrants, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) whose wife served in the Trump administration.

“It strikes me that didn’t bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao secretary of transportation,” McConnell said of his wife, who was born in Taiwan and became a US naturalized citizen in her teenage years.

The Iowa poll also found that 43% of GOP caucusgoers were more likely to vote for Trump after he said “radical left thugs that live like vermin” in the US need to be rooted out, and 50% were more likely to support him after he pledged to authorize “sweeping raids, giant camps, and mass deportations” to crack down on illegal immigration.

The survey, which was conducted Dec. 2-7, reached 502 likely GOP Iowa caucus attendees and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.