Why are pundits obsessed with crime when voters aren't?
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a feature on the Latino vote headlined, “We are not all Democrats.” The story polls 10 Hispanic voters to find, “Our participants thought Republicans were stronger on a variety of issues, such as crime and safety, gun control, national security, immigration and the economy.”
Given the placement of “crime and safety” in the lede, you’d think the respondents are really worried about crime and public safety, right? But only one man cited “crime” as one of his biggest concerns, and only after the economy and housing prices.
They did say they preferred Republicans on crime, but only when prompted by the interviewer. Housing, inflation, the economy, immigration—all appear as much bigger concerns than crime.
The story is part of an ongoing trend where Democrats and liberal media figures fret that Latinos are flocking to the GOP because AOC says ‘Latinx’” or whatever. A corollary to the panic about “wokeness” is the idea that a handful of Democrats fucked up by embracing “defund the police” for 5 minutes.
A recent Gallup poll also found that Americans just don’t think that much about crime, much less worry about it so much they’re embracing “tough on crime” Republicans.
Only 37 percent said they’d be afraid to walk at night within a mile of where they live. That seems high but not if you consider that all women have a healthy concern about walking alone at night, largely disconnected from, say, concerns about shoplifting.
More general questions about crime largely yield a “meh.” Only 9 percent said crime where they live is a very serious problem, while merely 5 percent said it was “extremely serious.”
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