Democrats have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to win the border fight — will they take it? 

2024 is looking to be the year America’s most durable political alliances come unglued.  

The Trump era is driving a deep rethink of what makes a Democrat and what makes a Republican. Now that once-in-a-generation ideological debate is playing out in ways pundits could hardly have predicted even a few years ago. 

We’ve already seen the aftershocks of America’s political realignment on the abortion debate, where decades of political skittishness on Democrats’ part has given way to a robust pro-choice message personally amplified by President Biden. Now Republicans’ stunning collapse in the face of a bipartisan border deal puts Democrats in the unique position of running to the GOP’s right on immigration and border security.  

The party’s cowardice on the border offers Democrats a rare opportunity to redefine an issue that has favored Republicans for much of the past 40 years. Sharp political players including Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Biden have been quick to seize the opportunity, even as Democrats’ newfound love of border policy risks inflaming the party’s restive left. 

This week’s latest example of GOP legislative dysfunction comes more than a decade after an extreme Republican House of Representatives tanked the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration reform package; Republicans have spent most of their time since then ringing alarm bells about the pressing crisis on our southern border. Now those same Republicans face a serious problem: How can GOP lawmakers credibly claim the border is a crisis in need of immediate solutions while actively refusing to support their own proposed fixes?  

At the heart of Biden’s rapid evolution on border policy is the harsh political reality that six in 10 swing state voters blame him for what Republicans call America’s “immigration crisis.” In Biden’s political calculus, a bipartisan deal to secure the border offers an everybody-wins news story that lawmakers — and Biden — can take back to their respective bases. But getting there means accepting many of the factually shaky immigration arguments Republicans have been blanketing the media with for years. That’s proving too much for some of the party’s immigrant advocates. 

“Hardly anybody in power is pushing back on GOP fear mongering about immigrants by making the case for how they benefit our country,” former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro posted on X earlier this week. “Instead, most Democrats are letting the GOP win the narrative. We’re all worse off for it.” 

It isn’t hard to see what Castro is talking about. Biden has taken a decidedly more aggressive tone on immigration in recent months, including a bold pledge to “shut down” the southern border if Congress gives him the authorization. That’s language Democrats are more used to hearing from Donald Trump than from a president who campaigned in 2020 on the inhumanity of Trump’s “remain in Mexico” asylum-seeker policy.   

Biden isn’t alone, either. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is weighing an independent challenge to Biden this year, has been a consistent voice for toughening U.S. border policy. But Manchin’s status as something of a Democratic Party exile has muted any real consideration of his ideas among the party’s elite decisionmakers. Harder to ignore was Fetterman, who made national headlines at the end of last year for calling on his party to compromise with congressional Republicans on “reasonable” border reforms.  

Fetterman’s new vigor for immigration policy and his disavowal of the progressive label he campaigned on in 2022 has left the party’s progressives scrambling for an anchor as the political ground shifts beneath them. Now that Democrats see a real opportunity to humiliate Republicans over their inability to pass tough new border protections, it’s even less likely that Biden and Senate Democrats will be interested in humoring the left’s concerns about the president’s sharper rhetoric.  

Democrats’ desire to frame themselves as tough on the border has moved beyond just words. In December, progressive Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs urged Biden to deploy Arizona’s National Guard as a bulwark against the state’s immigration crisis. When the White House hesitated, Hobbs took the extraordinary step of activating the troops on her own.  

Biden is now left with the sticky problem of how to appease left-aligned immigration groups who are now furious at how easily Democrats have adopted the GOP’s language on immigration and border security. Biden’s re-election hopes now depend on his uncanny ability to read the American electorate, as he so effectively did in 2020 and 2022.  

For now, at least, Democratic leaders are still willing to stand by their man. 

Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.