WaPo Accuses GOP Senate Candidate of 'Demagoguery' for Addressing Border Crisis

After conservatives forced House Republicans to pass a border bill that prohibited President Barack Obama from using federal funds to enact more executive amnesty, Arkansas Republican Senate candidate Tom Cotton made the border crisis more of an issue in his campaign. 

On Monday, he called out Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) with an online ad blasting him for ignoring the crisis, which the Washington Post said was demagoguing, even though more Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about illegal immigration in nearly every poll.

“Our southern border. Chaos and crime. Washington made the mess. Senator Mark Pryor voted for amnesty. Citizenship for illegals,” a narrator says in the ad. “Pryor voted against a border fence three times. And now, Pryor ignores the crisis.”

It then shows a clip of Pryor saying: “We have a much more secure border today than we did 10 years ago.” The narrator then mocks Pryor for those remarks: “Seriously, Senator?… It’s time to retire Pryor.”

The Washington Post‘s Greg Sargeant admitted that he doesn’t “have any idea how this will play in Arkansas,” but still slammed Cotton’s ad as proof that the “border crisis has forced the Republican Party further to the right on immigration than even Mitt Romney was in 2012.” 

Sargeant accuses Cotton of “Ted Cruz/Steve King demagoguery on this issue” without mentioning that the massive influx of illegal immigrant juveniles from Central America, after President Barack Obama enacted temporary amnesty for DREAMers, has changed the public’s perception. A majority want illegal immigrants sent back more quickly and illegal immigration, according to the most recent Gallup poll, is the top issue concerning Americans.

Democrats like Pryor from red states are increasingly concerned about the illegal immigration issue, which is resonating beyond border states, as the Obama administration dumps illegal immigrant juveniles in states far from the border. Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown, for instance, was the first candidate to address the border crisis in a television ad–in New Hampshire.