Trump and his allies have described their intentions toward immigrants in overtly fascist terms. Trump said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and that “getting them out will be a hell of a story.” He promised to use the military to round up millions of immigrants – including people here legally — in mass detention camps and deport them, causing unimaginable social and economic chaos. For months, however, we have seen headlines claiming that a majority of Americans, including a substantial portion or even a majority of Latinos, support mass deportations.

These headlines are the result of what I call “poll washing” – using polls to “reveal” popular support for something that those polled don’t fully understand. There is abundant evidence, often in the same polls, that people support the abstract idea of ​​”mass deportation” but oppose the details of what Trump’s planned mass deportation would actually entail. But we hear nothing of this contradiction. And that silence risks giving Trump’s plans a false legitimacy.

For example, 54% of voters in a September Scripps/Ipsos survey they said they supported the “mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.” but a far greater share (68%) said they supported a path to citizenship for Dreamers, who would face deportation under Trump’s plans. In an October New York Times/Siena poll45% of Hispanic voters said they support “Deporting immigrants living illegally in the United States back to their countries of origin” – yet 67% said they support “Providing a path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States United”.

In focus groups for Collaborative researchwe often see that Latinos open to voting for Trump do not realize that his deportation plans could sweep away their own friends or family members. They assume it will only deport people who have recently passed. But their views change quickly once they realize that Trump can and will sweep away noncitizens — documented or not — who have lived here for decades.

A recent survey conducted by Data for progress confirms that this dynamic is valid for the majority of voters throughout the country. When voters were given nine specific examples of undocumented immigrants, only two categories had majority support for deportation — someone who recently crossed the border and someone who has a criminal record for a nonviolent crime. For the other seven examples, such as a doctoral student who overstayed her visa or someone who has lived here for 15 years and has US-born children, less than a third of respondents supported deportation.

This poll washing is very dangerous for two reasons. First, a potentially decisive number of voters (not just Latinos), who would reject Trump if they knew his real plans, might choose to stay home or even vote for him. Second, if Trump wins, it will falsely appear that he has a warrant for his violent and disruptive mass deportation plans.

Voters are more likely to turn out if they feel they have something to lose by staying home. Flushing polls completely erases this from the conversation. Experts try to predict people’s reasons for voting by looking at polls that rank the issues “most important” to voters. As we saw in the 2022 semester, however, people might rank “abortion” as less “important” than “the economy” in a poll — but still turn out in droves to defeat or prevent abortion bans. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, with Trump’s three nominees providing the crucial votes, people suddenly understood how much they had to lose if they voted for MAGA.

The most alarming thing about this election has been how much less alarm there is about the prospects of a second Trump term than there was four years ago, despite substantial evidence that we should be far more alarmed now than we were then. As I did argued for a long timewhether Trump loses this year will depend on enough voters to understand how much they have to lose if he wins. We can’t predict this with a poll — but we can change it by doing everything we can to inform voters about the stakes. And that includes responsible polling and coverage.