The moment came and went quickly, but blossomed on social media, where Latinos responded by highlighting the sacrifices their families have made in the country, leading both #ThatMexicanThing and #ThatMexicanThingAgain to trend on Twitter….the attention from young people and Hispanics on social media is a good sign for a campaign that need them when it comes to young Latinos.

New polling suggests that this “Mexican thing” isn’t going away for the Republican Party anytime soon.

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Scott Clement and Jim Tankersley report today that newly-released polling from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs sheds fresh light on the true nature of Donald Trump’s immigration appeals among Republican voters. The key finding is that Republican voters are disproportionately concerned about what they view as the negative impact of immigration on the United States — and disproportionately want something done to control it. These negative feelings about immigration are even more pronounced among Trump supporters — even as they are not shared by a majority of the broader public, the poll found.

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Crucially, the Chicago Council’s polling from previous years show that these concerns among Republicans predate Trump, suggesting that he identified and spoke to already existing anxieties. As Clement and Tankersley put it, these anxieties “appear unlikely to dissipate,” even if Trump loses. (Click through the link for more information and charts.)

It should be noted that polling has been mixed on Republicans and immigration, with some showing that Republicans actually support a path to citizenship. But other polls have shown that Republican voters support mass deportations, which has been one of the central pillars of Trump’s agenda for the last year, notwithstanding the fact that many news organizations have suggested that he’s “softening” on this goal. If the new polling above is right, such instincts and anxieties may outlast Trump’s candidacy and continue to bedevil Republican leaders who have long wanted to move beyond this issue in hopes of recasting the party as more welcoming to Latino immigrants. That could complicate efforts to embrace reform after Trump, at a moment when Republican leaders might be particularly eager to expunge the stench of Trumpism from their party.

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And so, in a sense, it’s fitting that Pence’s “that Mexican thing” moment has gone viral, because it captures a great deal about Campaign 2016. On the one hand, for many Latinos, it seemed to neatly capture the hostility towards Mexican and undocumented immigrants that has long provided the Trump campaign with its driving energy. Remember, the quote that Kaine kept throwing in Pence’s face — in which Trump called Mexican immigrants “rapists” — was delivered during Trump’s presidential announcement speech. On the other, given that Pence blurted out “that Mexican thing” after finally growing frustrated with having to explain away that hostile quote, it also seemed to capture the annoyance many establishment Republicans (many of whom favor immigration reform and getting right with Latinos) seem to feel with having their party hijacked by the xenophobic Trump.

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