Voters say crime is a problem, but don't approve of Trump's response

Crime is the latest issue where the president has moved too far to the right relative to the public's ideal policy

I’m traveling this morning to give a lecture on public opinion and partisan confirmation bias (something of an epilogue to Strength In Numbers, the book), so this Chart of the Week will be short. And honestly, after already writing four articles already this week, I’m running on fumes.

However, I have not yet written at any length about Donald Trump’s federalization of the Washington, D.C., police department, so I wanted to touch briefly on several new polls showing voters oppose the president’s actions on the issue. That’s below the fold in this week’s Chart of the Week.

---

Voters do think crime is a problem

Last week, at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C., a non-profit advocacy group presented research showing that the message “serious about safety” polled better among U.S. adults than “tough on crime.” I haven’t been able to find their slides online, but they have been making this case for at least a few cycles: Here’s a similar presentation from 2022.

This may or may not be a good line for Democrats next year. But what’s obvious from the polling is that either one is better than denying that crime is a problem at all, or redirecting to the point that conditions are better than they were two years ago. That’s because voters simply disagree with that argument. They perceive that crime is a problem, and want their leaders to do something about it.

That’s according to a new Associated Press-NORC poll out this week. NORC finds that 65% of Americans say crime in the U.S. generally is “a big problem,” and 81% agree when they’re asked specifically about crime in “large cities.”

Note there’s a bit of a Fenno’s Paradox going on here, with voters saying crime in their local community is mostly not a big deal. This gets back to the point that perception of crime, not actual crime rates, is what matters to voters.

The problem Democrats have been running into is that their proposed solution doesn’t resonate with voters on this key point (that voters think crime is a problem). Since the 70s, a “tough on crime” message has just resonated more with the public. Fear of crime is often irrational for voters, but they still feel that fear regardless.

This doesn’t mean voters approve of Trump’s actions

However, thinking that crime is a problem is not the same as supporting the president’s policies on crime. This is the type of obvious component of public opinion that gets lost in the horse-race framing of the issue. This is not exactly a holistic model of voter psychology: Person thinks crime bad → Trump takes on crime → person thinks Trump good.

Instead, our new poll out this week finds Trump is actually underwater on “crime and public safety” generally:

Democrats lead the U.S. House generic ballot by 8; voters back fair maps and oppose Trump's tariffs

And the same AP-NORC poll I cited above also found that voters disapprove of the way Trump has handled crime in D.C.: Namely, by taking federal control of the local police department:

This reminds me of the polls about Trump sending in the National Guard to Los Angeles. In theory, they supported more resources for local policing. But when it came down to what that meant in practice — Trump federalizing the National Guard — voters were overwhelmingly opposed.

I think these polls are a good reminder that just because an issue is good or bad for the president doesn’t mean that voters are automatically for or against him.

This is the same lesson that people should have learned about the president’s immigration agenda early in his term.

The secondary lesson on immigration was that public opinion can change over time. So, this is an issue I’m going to keep my eye on, as Trump continues to threaten to expand his militarized police takeover across the country.