A recent study published in Sociological Science reveals that a Texas program transporting migrants to cities led by Democratic mayors boosted presidential support for Donald Trump in those specific destinations during the 2024 election. The research shows that the arrival of migrant buses amplified voters’ fears about crime and immigration, pushing swing voters toward the Republican ticket and driving higher turnout among conservative voters.
Between 2022 and 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott initiated a policy to transport more than 100,000 recently arrived immigrants from the southern border to six specific cities. These destination cities included Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
Each of these urban centers had previously enacted sanctuary ordinances. Sanctuary policies generally protect undocumented immigrants by limiting how much local law enforcement cooperates with federal immigration authorities. By sending buses to these locations, Texas officials created a highly visible migration event far from the actual border.
Sociologists and political researchers have studied how communities respond to sudden changes in their populations for decades. A central idea in this field is the concept of minority threat. This theory suggests that when a majority group perceives a rapid increase in a minority population, the majority group often responds with exclusionary attitudes and voting patterns.
Such reactions do not necessarily require direct personal contact with the new arrivals. Instead, these feelings of threat are often built through political messaging and media narratives that frame the population change as a crisis.
The research team wanted to understand if the intense political spectacle surrounding the Texas busing program actually changed how people voted. William Scarborough, an associate professor at the University of North Texas, led the investigation. He collaborated with Ronald Kwon, also an associate professor at the University of North Texas, and David Brady, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California.
Together, they sought to measure the program’s electoral impact and identify the specific types of voters who changed their behavior. To measure the impact of the busing program, the researchers analyzed county-level voting data from the past three presidential elections. They compared the election results of 2016 and 2020, which took place before the buses began arriving, with the results of the 2024 election.
The team contrasted the voting shifts in counties that received migrant buses against the voting shifts in similar counties that did not receive any buses. This approach allowed the researchers to isolate the specific changes that occurred in destination cities. It effectively removed the influence of broader national trends from their calculations.
The data revealed a clear shift in voter preference within the targeted locations. In counties that received migrant buses, Donald Trump’s share of the vote increased by more than three percentage points compared to his performance in previous elections. This increase held true across multiple statistical tests.
The researchers compared the targeted urban centers to other large cities, and they also compared them to untreated counties within the exact same states. In every scenario, Trump performed better in the areas that received the migrant buses. After establishing this county-level trend, Scarborough and his colleagues looked for the specific mechanisms driving the change.
They turned to individual-level exit poll data from the Associated Press VoteCast survey. This massive data set provided detailed demographic and polling information on thousands of voters. It allowed the researchers to track changes in political preferences and voter turnout while accounting for factors like age, race, and income.
The exit polls showed that swing voters played a major role in the shifting political landscape of the destination cities. People who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 were more likely to switch their support to Trump in 2024 if they lived in a community that received migrant buses. This shift was heavily tied to an increased fear of crime among these voters.
The busing program appeared to amplify crime-related concerns, pushing these previous Biden supporters toward a more restrictive immigration platform. The researchers also found that the busing program energized conservative voters who had previously stayed home. Self-identified Republicans who did not vote in the 2020 election were much more likely to cast a ballot in 2024 if they lived in a targeted city.
For this group, the motivation to vote was strongly linked to heightened concerns about immigration policy. The political messaging surrounding the migrant buses effectively mobilized these individuals to participate in the electoral process. The buses brought a perceived border crisis directly to their local news stations, triggering a partisan response.
At the same time, the research team checked to see if the busing policy discouraged liberal voters from participating. They wondered if Democrats might have withheld their votes in protest of the situation. However, the data showed no evidence of this, and any shifts in liberal voting patterns were not statistically significant.
Democrats who voted in 2020 were just as likely to vote in 2024, regardless of whether their city received migrant buses. The entire shift in the electoral outcome was driven by swing voters changing sides and conservative voters increasing their turnout. This means the overall demographic impact was driven by specific segments of the population reacting to the news.
The actual number of migrants transported by the Texas program was relatively small compared to the total foreign-born populations already living in these large cities. For example, the new arrivals represented a tiny fraction of the existing immigrant communities in places like New York or Los Angeles. Because of this, the researchers concluded that the political shift was likely driven by the media and political construction of an immigration crisis.
Direct, everyday interactions between voters and migrants were likely less impactful than the ongoing news coverage. Public discussions frequently associated the arrival of the buses with rising crime rates in the destination cities. However, independent research consistently shows that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens.
A localized influx of migrants has not been shown to increase local crime rates. Despite these facts, the perception of a link between the buses and criminal activity heavily influenced the electorate, especially among swing voters. David Brady pointed out the disconnect between actual crime data and voter perception in these destination cities.
He noted the power of political messaging in shaping the 2024 election results. “Texas Governor Abbott and President Trump were able to activate and mobilize anti-immigrant sentiments that had a measurable impact on the outcome of the presidential election,” Brady said.
He added a note of caution for the public. “Given the overwhelming evidence that immigration is associated with lower crime, voters should be particularly skeptical when politicians try to falsely link immigration and crime.”
While the study provides a detailed look at voter behavior, the researchers acknowledge a few limitations in their work. For instance, the exit poll data they used did not include survey responses from Washington, D.C. This meant one of the six targeted cities was left out of the individual-level analysis.
The researchers also relied on county-level voting data rather than smaller precinct-level data. Precinct boundaries change frequently, making long-term comparisons difficult over multiple election cycles. However, county-level data can sometimes mask highly localized neighborhood trends that might offer even more detail.
Future research could explore how these media narratives take hold in different types of communities across the country. Investigators might look at whether smaller towns react to sudden demographic changes in the same way as massive metropolitan centers. Additionally, sociologists could study the long-term effects of these busing programs to see if the heightened political fears fade over time.
The results from this study show that as state governments take a more active role in immigration policy, their actions can easily ripple outward. These localized decisions have the power to shape national elections in profound ways. Politicians can effectively manufacture a political crisis that alters voting behavior far beyond their own borders.
The study, “The Effect of the Texas Migrant Busing Program on the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election,” was authored by William Scarborough, Ronald Kwon, and David Brady.
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