Since their 2012 defeat, we’ve heard a lot about the Republicans’ inability to connect with Hispanic voters. But as was also apparent four years ago, the GOP is under water with other minority groups, and most specifically Asian-Americans. If the 2012 results, in which Asians broke 73-26 percent for President Obama over Mitt Romney, weren’t enough to alert the GOP to the problem, a new poll published by the nonpartisan National Asian-American Survey group demonstrates that, if anything, it’s getting worse for Republicans. Considering that this group is the source of the greatest number of legal immigrants and is growing even faster than Hispanics, it’s fair to ask what possible hope Republicans have of winning future elections if they continue—as the nomination of Donald Trump seems to indicate—writing off minorities.

In 2012, Asians constituted three percent of the electorate according to exit polls. This year that number should be higher, which is bad news for Trump since a new poll shows him trailing Hillary Clinton by a 55-14 margin. Worse than that, the study shows that Asians are identifying as Democrats by almost as large a margin. The explanation for this trend is fairly obvious. As immigrants, Asians—a term that like the word “Hispanic” admittedly encompasses many different groups with varying interests—are inclined to support a party that is predicated on providing services rather than on limiting the power of government. They also worry about discrimination and are turned off by anything that smacks of exclusionary attitudes about immigration.

That’s why many on the right have decided that caring about immigrant minority groups like Hispanics and Asians is a waste of time. Since Republicans can’t and shouldn’t compete with Democrats to demonstrate who can give the most free stuff to voters, some think the only way for the GOP to win is to try and get more white voters to the polls–especially those missing millions conservatives keep talking about, though there’s not much hard evidence those people actually exist.

Worse than that, some on the right are talking about 2016 as if it is the last chance to “save Western civilization,” as Ann Coulter put it recently, since the current crop of immigrants—legal as well as illegal—are importing attitudes about democracy as well as economics that will destroy America as we know it. She’s not the only one saying these things. As I noted last month, even temperate voices like the Christian conservative leader Gary Bauer are speaking of November as a “Flight 93 election,” which constitutes the only opportunity to prevent Democrats and their immigrant supporters from undermining American values.

That this is self-defeating nonsense ought to be obvious. Even if Trump wins this year, does anyone think he can do a thing to stop legal immigration? Even if every illegal was magically deported and no new legal immigrants were to arrive, the Hispanics and the Asians who are already here and becoming citizens aren’t going anywhere. And the more Republicans talk about them being a threat to civilization, the less likely they will ever be to listen to conservative arguments.

The Asian-American survey is important not just because of what it indicates about this group’s affinity for Clinton and the Democrats. It also indicates that there are clear opportunities for Republicans to make inroads among Asian voters provided they stop speaking about immigration as a threat. Asian voters’ priorities are not that different from those of the rest of the country. Their main concern is the economy. After that, it’s terror and national security. Moreover, they are split on the question of admitting Syrian refugees, which is another indication that security is just as important to them as solidarity with fellow newcomers. In other words, this is a group of hardworking immigrants who should be receptive to conservative ideas about freedom, responsibility, and a strong America.

The general perception is that multiculturalism and the welfare state have undermined the country’s ability to assimilate immigrants. But while those problems are real, the evidence shows that we’re actually getting better at it in the last generation in terms of immigrants learning English and integrating into society. That’s why there is no reason to believe that the political views of Asians or Hispanics can’t evolve over time just as those of other non-Anglophone groups did in the 19th and early 20th centuries. But what Trump and others who speak of immigrants bringing on the apocalypse for American democracy are doing is to ensure that their current attitudes will be set in stone for generations to come. A Republican Party that fights for conservative ideas can eventually win a significant share of minority votes. But a nativist blood and soil party that fears immigration rather than seeing it as a strength never will.