The NPR Politics Podcast - More Voters Trust Republicans To Address Elevated Crime Rates

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Violent crime remains higher than it was pre-pandemic and Republican candidates are blanketing suburban airways with ads about the issue. It has led many Democratic candidates to tout their support for law enforcement and distance themselves from the push for policing reform that took shape after 2020's racial justice protests.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, criminal justice correspondent Martin Kaste, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Support the show and unlock sponsor-free listening with a subscription to The NPR Politics Podcast Plus. Learn more at plus.npr.org/politics Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Becca and Katie in San Diego. We're having a proposition party with friends where we each research one California ballot proposition and share with each other. This podcast was recorded at 1.13 p.m. Eastern Time on November 1st, 2022. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but we'll be more educated voters. Okay, here's the show. That's such a classic California thing to do. I feel like I never hear about propositions as much as I do from Californians. Totally. And there's just so many ballot initiatives up this year. We're going to have a heck of a time sorting through them.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we are joined by our colleague Martin Costi. He covers criminal justice for NPR. Martin, we are glad to have you with us. Hello. Thanks for having me. So crime rates spiked during the pandemic. Violent crime like murders and gun assaults in major cities remain much higher than they were pre-COVID. And as a result, Republicans are returning to this old playbook. They've been accusing Democrats of being soft on crime. And you see this especially in ads that are blanketing the airways in the suburbs. Democrats in those races often are working to emphasize their support

for the police. And it is true that many Democratic-led cities have actually increased funding for police departments in the last few years, which is all to say this has created a sort of messaging battle ahead of the midterms. And Martin, I know you have been reporting on this, specifically looking at the governor's race in New York, which in itself, I think, is very interesting because a lot of us assume New York is a very blue state. So what has your reporting show? Yeah, I think Kathy Hochul is the incumbent. The Democrat is in a race now where that wasn't expected, facing Lee Zeldin, who's a congressman from Long Island, definitely passed supporting Trump. He kind of tries to steer a little clear of that right now, but he did not vote to certify the election of Joe Biden.

And he's been pounding Hochul on crime, on the fact that there has been a surge of violent crime for sure statewide as well as in New York City. There have been some very high-profile violent crimes, especially on the subways, which always has a way of scaring New Yorkers. I think they've had something like eight violent deaths on the subways this year, where normally it's maybe zero or one or two. You know, stuff like that really catches voters' attention. And he's been pounding that saying basically that the state is in a crime emergency, and he's going to declare one. Just to get a sense of the tenor of that vote, I saved a little snippet of an exchange between Zeldin and Hochul in their Seoul debate last week.

They told me these stories of having to hug a pole or grab a guardrail because they're afraid of being pushed in front of an oncoming subway car. There are criminals out there who need to pay the consequences for their action instead of the catch-or-release policies that Kathy Hochul champions. It is a joke to talk about a crime policy that doesn't include doing something about illegal guns. When you had the chance as a member of Congress to stand with other Republicans who finally said enough is enough, no more school massacres by teenagers, let's have background checks. You were nowhere to be found, Lee. So there you get a sense of Zeldin emphasizing the sense that there are more people with records

on the streets committing crimes. Catch and release is his shorthand for that. And then Hochul pushing back on Republican resistance to gun control. The bottom line is people need to feel safe when they go out. And crime is a huge issue, if not the main issue in executive races, especially mayoral races. And a governor's race kind of fits into that. You know, it's why someone like Rudy Giuliani, when he was a Republican, was able to become mayor of New York when Democrats outnumber Republicans in New York by like seven to one. Domenico, I am curious, though, what is making crime such a potent issue for Republicans in this moment? You know, we talked about the crime stats at the beginning of the show. There are some indications, obviously, that violent crime has gone up, but there's also indications that other types of crime have not been going up. But what I've been struck by is the perceptions. And it feels like a lot of Americans really do think crime in their neighborhood, crime in their area is at a record high. Well, in politics, what's important often is perception.

I mean we've seen data on that too where more people are saying that they do feel less safe going out, that they see more violent crime in their community. And violent crime is up as we talked about. And honestly, there have been some real splashy, brazen examples that have gotten a lot of attention. You know, think about like the smash and grabs in San Francisco. Martin talked about the subway attacks in New York City. You know, things that have happened out in the open in broad daylight that haven't happened traditionally in some of these places in such a concentrated way. And that's something that Republicans have really been able to tie together using that in advertising, you know, almost a

quarter of their ads, for example, have focused on crime, and they've really been able to close the gap in a lot of places. And we shouldn't also lose focus of the fact that part of the strategy here in using crime as an issue is that it appeals to suburban white women. And Democrats have a perceived advantage with suburban white women, especially because of abortion rights and how strongly Democrats have been able to try to get enthusiasm up after the Dobbs decision. There's an interesting phenomenon when I talk to criminologists and people who study this kind of thing, who say that a lot of concern about violent crime in polls or just conversations with people often is rooted in lower level crimes that they see around them being less addressed. And that certainly is true that since 2020, especially, you know, a lot of big city police departments have had fewer police officers.

They've been told in some cases not to enforce things that are maybe more quality of life related. So these little things become, you know, disorder on the subway or, you know, more tolerance of panhandlers, that kind of thing, broken windows, that kind of thing becomes kind of rolled into that perception that the world is more dangerous. And I was, I've got some more tape for you here. There's a fellow I know in New York, Peter Moskos. He's a former police officer. He's an author. He's a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice there. And he, you know, we were talking about this the other day, and he said, no, he is, he considers himself a moderate liberal, but he's worried that maybe the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party doesn't want to acknowledge sort of those things and how that influences how people feel about crime.

And that may open the door to more of a right-wing backlash, kind of rolling back reforms across the board. There is a real attempt at denialism. And I think a lot of that comes from a movement that was focused solely on reducing mass incarceration, which, you know, is a movement in principle I support, but you have to do that. And we were doing that for a decade. That was so frustrating. But you have to do that, keeping in mind that public safety is important. So he's really worried there that this could all just lead to a big backlash. And Republicans have used that against candidate after candidate in so many races. Domenico, you were mentioning earlier that particularly in governor's races or mayoral races,

this is coming up quite a bit. And I am struck by how it seems like in some races, Republicans who have handled the situation well are also running on that. You know, I was in Georgia the other week, and I was speaking with this guy who's always voted Democratic, but he was planning to vote for a Republican in the governor's race for the first time in his life. And he mentioned that in part he was impressed with how the Republican governor there had handled riots in this bougie neighborhood called Buckhead. And that was factoring into his vote. Well, and Georgia is one of those places where we're likely to see a lot of crossover voters, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, who are going to vote for Brian Kemp, the governor, who's favored to be reelected, and also vote for the Democrat Raphael Warnock, the incumbent, to try to be back in that seat in Congress. So one of the few places we're going to see a lot of ticket splitting. Which is why that state is so fascinating to me. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll have more in a moment.

And we're back. And Martin, I want to dig a little deeper into Democratic messaging for a moment. I mean, part of why Republicans have been hammering Democrats on crime is because they sense the Democrats are vulnerable on this issue. And, you know, we spoke earlier about Democrats touting their support for police, which is a messaging shift from the progressives who gained a lot of attention in the party under this, quote, defund the police umbrella back in 2020. And we're not hearing that conversation the same way now. Yeah, and I think Republicans, you know, saw that the Democrats led by Biden, you know, tried to neutralize this issue right away, starting in 2020, as I said before. So they have been trying to focus more on the more liberal Democrats at the big city level. in Manhattan, whom the candidate Zelten has promised to fire, and people like Larry Krasner,

the DA in Philadelphia, whom the Mehmet Oz Senate campaign have been trying to tie to the Democrat Fetterman, saying that they're basically best buddies. There's a sense here that if you focus on the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party that wins elections at the city level in places like Philadelphia for these sort of progressive DA ideas, you know, less incarceration, that kind of thing, that they can make their point there. In Pennsylvania, they're actually, the Republican-led state legislature is in the process of impeaching Larry Krasner, the DA in Philadelphia during election season. And I talked to him about that. And, you know, he said, he sees it as a purely cynical move, but he also thinks that his fellow Democrats who are more moderate are wrong to try to attack the center. The Democratic logic on the part of some of the mainstream candidates who, frankly, I think

respectfully don't get it, their logic is the usual, which is let's imitate Republicans. I mean, it was Bill Clinton who said, I'm not going to let the Republicans outcrime me. As usual, there seems to be this notion that there's a finite number of voters and we're all doing a tug of war for the ones in the middle. When Donald Trump proved that was absolutely wrong. And what he means there is Donald Trump proved there are untapped voters you can bring out with the right kind of messaging. Krasner just thinks you can bring out more left-leaning young voters and others. You know, Domenico, I'm so fascinated by hearing what Krasner said there, because when you look again at the governor's race at a macro level in Pennsylvania, we've actually seen the Democratic candidate for governor there try to focus on this sort of moderate mainstream message on crime. Well, and candidates matter there, too. I mean,

the Republican in that race being an election denier and someone so hard-lined to the right and aligned with Trump in a place like Pennsylvania that's pretty purple, left-leaning state. That's tough. That's a tough sell. that Republican outside groups are spending that helped close the gap with the Democrat Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor, have really focused and centered on crime. And where Republicans are successful on this is when they can take, you know, someone like Fetterman said, or Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin is running against Ron Johnson, Barnes, the Lieutenant Governor there, and tie them to a policy like reducing incarceration and putting it on steroids essentially or having aligned themselves with defund the police in one way or another and then even exaggerating a position but can really use that. And what we've seen in our polling is that Republicans are way more

trusted on crime than Democrats are. And Republicans see those numbers. And that's why they've cut so many ads on it. You know, one candidate there in Pennsylvania, who's really tried to own this issue of crime and take it on, I think, directly, is the Democrat who's running for governor, Josh Shapiro there. You know, Martin, are you seeing other candidates in the state who are taking sort of a more moderate approach and really trying to preemptively rebut these Republican claims? Definitely. I mean, I think as soon as you get outside of Philadelphia, I spent some time in Northeastern Pennsylvania because that's where President Biden started sort of about two months ago, he brought his plan for, you know, more money, more federal money for policing to Wilkes-Barre near Scranton, you know,

his old stomping grounds. And he did that in part, I think, because of his personal roots, but also because there are a couple of congressional races up there that are on the bubble where incumbent Democrats have a big fight on their hands. And the candidates up there, you know, they don't even want to talk about Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. That's not a discussion they wanted to have with me. They said they kept coming back to the point, which is probably true, that if you walk down to the corner deli in Scranton, no one will know that name Larry Krasner, and they're not about to start talking about him. And instead, they, you know, they had a photo op at the local police department

in Wilkes-Barre talking about more federal funding for more police officers and more equipment in the region. You know, that's the kind of photo op they want right now. And that's what they're trying to put on the air. Dimnika, before we wrap today's show, I got one final question for you. You know, we have spent so much of this election season, I think, focused on two big issues, the economy, inflation and abortion. And where do you see crime fitting into voters' concerns? You know, we always ask about top choices, right, in an election. And obviously inflation, economic issues have been the top concern for independents and Republicans for the most part.

But that doesn't mean that even though crime is further down the list of the top concern, it doesn't mean it's not a motivating concern for a lot of Republicans. And it is, you know, crime and immigration are two issues for the Republican base that are super important for them. We've seen numbers on Republicans who think that crime in their area has gone up really spike in the past year or two. So getting them out to the polls for Republicans to be able to try to take over the House and potentially take over the Senate is hugely important, especially in a midterm that's dominated by base elections, as we see independents who are further down the list on enthusiasm and interest in this election. All right, well, let's leave it there for today. Martin Costi, who covers criminal justice for NPR,

such a pleasure to have you join us. Appreciate it. My pleasure. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.