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The u.s. midterm elections are a referendum on donald trump over the past two months the president has crisscross the nation to help the republicans save their majorities in the house and senate in recent weeks trump has returned to the law & order theme that helped him win the white house in 2016 his closing argument has been to stoke fears about migrants and
Asylum seekers heading towards the u.s. days before the poll he said he would send troops to the border to prevent the migrants from entering the country to see how immigration is dividing american voters we went to the frontier state of texas and inland to tennessee in texas beytagh work a former punk rocker is challenging republican senator ted cruz in a way
That nobody thought possibly the race pits an arch-conservative against a charismatic liberal challenger who cruz describes as a socialist and has nicknamed comrade beta beta has raised more money than any senate candidate in history taking in 38 million dollars in the last quarter from individual donors and is chasing cruz in the polls but texas has not elected
A democrat to statewide office in more than two decades we followed bait around dallas and then to amarillo a conservative cattle trading city that voted 80% for trump in 2016 before his rally at the six-car pub i asked beto what he thought about trump using immigration to whip up his white conservative base the choice of all choices it can be fear and paranoia
And hinted in anxiety or to be confidence and strength and the kind heartedness by which texas has so long distinguished itself that’s that’s that’s on the ballot right now and i gotta tell you everywhere we go including in amarillo every single visit that we maybe this community i’ve seen the strength the courage the confidence of this state shine through nancy
And abel bosque as are texans but with deep mexican roots for them trump’s anti-mexican rhetoric is personal these people are coming here but texas is still a red state and you don’t have to go too far to find someone who supports trump and cruz i meet jason harlow a capital trader from dallas who fears that the democrats would introduce socialism and liberal
Values i’m definitely a cruz supporter and and and i like donald trump as well and i feel i understand maybe not everybody likes those two guys personalities but at this point in our country i don’t think personalities should be what we’re really worried about is this is there is a move toward socialism while the migrant caravan remains far from the us trump is
Hoping that the images of thousands of people heading towards the border will stoke fear and turn out voters on november 6th texas is right on the frontier of the immigration debate but 1,700 kilometers inland on the foothills of the appalachian mountains in tennessee some republicans are just as fearful about illegal immigrants even in areas that are overwhelmingly
White here marsha blackburn a tea party republican is using the caravan issue to attack phil breslin a former democratic governor who is challenging her friend open senate seat we managed to track down breaston at a rally outside a polling station we having legal processes voters and early polling stations in chattanooga were fired up about the events happening
Thousands of kilometres away in mexico i don’t feel like our money should be going to support immigrants that are coming here illegally and all of these people that are on welfare and food stamps that are able-bodied and able to work should be doing so we did this we work all of our lives and right now we’re having to pinch pennies to get by trump has ramped up
The rhetoric much as he did in the final weeks of the presidential election and rallies his g’d up his supporters by painting democrats as a mob of socialists who were weak on crime and border security to make sure nobody misses his closing argument trump shared a video on twitter showing an illegal immigrant from mexico bragging in court about killing american
Police officers critics have described the ad is racist an accused trump of using a dog whistle to spread fear in some ways trump may be trying to make up for the fact that he’s not been able to build a wall on the us-mexico border despite the fanfare during his 2016 campaign but our travels around texas and tennessee revealed the stark divide over immigration in
A country of immigrants a battle that will return to the fore in just a few weeks as the first democrats launched their campaigns for the 2020 presidential race
Transcribed from video
Immigration and Trump dominate US midterm elections By Financial Times
