The Point: Crime is the dark horse issue of this election

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October 31, 2022 | by Chris Cillizza and Shania Shelton

Crime is the dark horse issue of this election

The fight between Republicans and Democrats in the midterm elections has been cast as a proxy war between the issues of the economy and abortion rights.

What that binary misses is that crime has become the sneaky big issue of this election.

In new Gallup polling, the economy still ranks as the top issue, with 85% of registered voters saying it will be "extremely" or "very important" to their vote. But guess what came in second? Yes, crime -- with 71% of registered voters saying it was either extremely or very important to their vote. (By comparison, 66% said the same for abortion.)

That finding comes after Gallup released a survey that showed that more than half of Americans (56%) said there was more crime in their area compared to a year ago. That was the highest mark Gallup ever measured over five decades of polling on the question.

Crime has surged so quickly as an election issue that this marks the first midterm year Gallup has asked about its importance to voters. Now 4 in 10 voters said that it is "extremely important" to how they will vote.

And the issue crosses party lines -- at least to some extent. In terms of issues voters said were "extremely important," crime was tied for second among Republicans with immigration, behind only the economy. Among independents, crime was in third behind the economy and abortion. And for Democrats, crime ranked fifth.

Campaigns being waged all over the country reflect this reality. And it's Republicans in particular who are attempting to go on offense over the issue.

Over the first three weeks of October, Republican candidates and committees spent $64.5 million on ads focused on crime, accounting for roughly one-quarter of the party's overall ad spending during that period, according to a CNN analysis of AdImpact data. Meanwhile, Democrats spent $58 million on ads mentioning crime over that stretch, around 15% of their total ad spending.

In a Georgia gubernatorial debate on Sunday night, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp repeatedly invoked the "defund the police" movement in his attacks against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Abrams, who has highlighted her support for law enforcement during the campaign, said that Kemp was "lying again" about her record.

The Point: If Republicans retake the House (as seems likely) or the Senate (as seems less likely), concerns over the state of the economy -- inflation and gas prices in particular -- will be given the lion's share of the credit. But don't overlook voters' rising fears about crime as a potential issue.

-- Chris

TRIVIA TIME!

Which two presidents were sworn in by a former president? (Answer below.)

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"I've heard the word diversity quite a few times and I don't have a clue what it means."

-- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Monday as the court heard oral arguments on challenges to race-based affirmative action policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

MONDAY ON THE SOCIALS

1. Good polling news for Senate Democrats

2. Kemp and Abrams say they will accept the results

3. The January 6 committee gets more emails

4. Trump's last-minute move to keep his tax returns from Congress

CHRIS' GOOD READS

Can Barack Obama save Democrats? Politico reports on his attempts to do just that.

Semafor on the fentanyl conspiracy theory gaining steam on the campaign trail.

Republicans spent the weekend touting falsehoods about the attack on Paul Pelosi, according to The Washington Post.

Puck reports that Donald Trump wants to announce his 2024 bid soonest.

The Verge writes that Twitter is going to start charging $20 a month to be verified on the site. Which, well, no.

This is a fabulous read in The New York Times on the growing surfer culture in England.

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

I love Andrew Bird. I also love Phoebe Bridgers. So this new tune -- "I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain" -- that features both of them is right up my alley! (The song is based on a poem by Emily Dickinson.)

-- Chris

"DOWNSIDE UP"

Did you know you consume roughly a credit card's worth of plastic every single week?

It's true! Microplastics -- tiny pieces of plastic that shed off of most plastics -- have been found in virtually every surface in the world, including in the Arctic where people are, well, sparse.

That and MUCH more on the bad -- and the good! -- plastics have done for us in the latest episode of my podcast "Downside Up."

SUBSCRIBE HERE

A LATE STRATEGY SHIFT

With just over a week to go until Election Day, Democrats are attempting to shift focus to a topic that has not been all that successful for them politically so far: January 6.

CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere reports some Democratic candidates and groups hope a last-minute rush of ads and outreach on January 6 "and the threat to democracy can anger and scare enough of their own base and peel off still undecided voters to counter the momentum they sense moving toward the GOP."

Dovere writes: "A dozen panicked top Democratic strategists and party leaders acknowledged to CNN that the party has largely failed to get voters to think of GOP candidates' election denialism as disqualifying or to convince Americans to prioritize democracy when they cast their ballots. What Democrats haven't done, these strategists said, is connect that argument to voters' more immediate concerns about the economy and rising costs."