Mark Zuckerberg, the tech mogul best known as the creator of Facebook, has recently become more and more active in politics. He has begun to make use of FWD.us, the immigration advocacy group he was responsible for starting, to make it clear to the Republican party in no uncertain terms that the time has come to act with regard to immigration reform.
The comprehensive immigration bill passed last year by the Senate has stalled in the House of Representatives and the issue of reform is now a touchy one for Republicans with election season approaching. Zuckerberg and FWD.us have this past week used this to their advantage by releasing poll results conducted by the Council for American Job Growth, which is one of their affiliates.
The poll focused on ten swing districts currently represented by Republicans, within which the Council for American Job Growth and FWD.us tried to work out how voter loyalty to incumbents would be affected by pro-immigration adverts that centered on the negative consequences of failing to pass immigration reform and linked the results to the incumbent Republicans. The poll results were highly significant, with vote shares dropping 6% for the Republican incumbent.
“The data makes clear that there are real electoral consequences for Republicans in these districts, because voters tie them to their own party’s failure to take action on passing reform legislation,” says FWD.us spokeswoman Kate Hansen, who claims the results could indicate similar repercussions in the upcoming autumn elections.