Biden and Democrats can’t hide electoral jitters over rising crime rates

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President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders around the country are grappling with rising crime rates before the 2022 midterm elections, a cycle likely to be complicated by an issue that mixes voters’ safety with race relations.

But instead of tiptoeing around the issue, traditionally a losing one for Democrats, the party is trying to confront it head-on. And it is all part of an effort to avoid a barrage of “defund the police” political attacks that crippled candidates competing in battlegrounds last year. Democratic centrists have slammed liberals over that term, saying it cost them seats in the House last November.

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Biden arrived in Chicago Wednesday en route to Illinois’s 14th Congressional District, an area to the city’s west that he only won by 2 percentage points in 2020. The president did not stop for long in the Democrat-run city, where two federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents and a local police officer were shot Wednesday morning. But his trip to Lake Charles provided fodder to Republicans hoping to expose what they see as Democrats’ weakness on crime.

Republican operatives flagged recent Chicago crime statistics to reporters. There had been 2,019 shootings and 35% more murders than in 2019 so far this year, they said. The operatives also pointed out Biden was there to promote his trillion-dollar social welfare plan that is expected to get only Democratic votes rather than address community safety.

But White House press secretary Jen Psaki was prepared for questions on board Air Force One. She listed funds funneled into Chicago’s Cook County through Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package and other resources offered through the administration’s anti-gun strategy.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Biden’s top spokeswoman said the president had met with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and reiterated his commitment to “the fight against gun violence.” He told Lightfoot the Justice Department “would soon be in touch about the strike force announced just a few weeks ago that will be working with cities like Chicago,” she said.

A day earlier, Psaki underscored that crime rates had been worsening over the last 18 months, including the last year of former President Donald Trump’s term.

“We see spikes in violent crime typically during summer months, often, unfortunately, during holiday weekends,” she said, referring to the 108 people who were shot in Chicago over July Fourth weekend, 17 of whom died.

Aside from deploying the 18-month timeline, the White House and its Capitol Hill allies are latching on to how their Republican counterparts did not vote for Biden’s coronavirus proposal. Tucked into the legislation was $350 billion for state and local governments, with at least 10 GOP districts using the money to support police departments.

“Democrats across the country defunded the police and caused a crime wave. No amount of spin will change that,” House Republican campaign organization spokesman Mike Berg said.

Berg, of the National Republican Congressional Committee, cited a Washington Post-ABC News June poll in which 38% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of crime while 48% did not.

Biden is not the first Democratic president to deal with crime after it became a national issue thanks to Prohibition in the 1920s. His idol, Franklin Roosevelt, had to manage high-profile bank robberies, such as those perpetrated by John Dillinger and his gang, and kidnappings, including that of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s toddler son. In his response, he empowered J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, according to historian David Pietrusza.

“In June 1943, rioting erupted in Detroit between whites and black. The city’s mayor called for help, and FDR dispatched 6,000 federal troops, and the riot quickly subsided,” Pietrusza said.

Crime did not hinder another Democratic president again until Lyndon Johnson “and the spate of riots that started erupting as early as 1964 and continued until he left office,” Pietrusza added.

“This led to massive GOP gains in 1966 and a majority vote for Richard Nixon and George Wallace in 1968,” he said.

Republicans are banking on history repeating itself in 2022 after experiencing success last cycle. Advertisements, such as one featuring an unanswered police telephone line, allowed the GOP to hold Democrats to the narrowest Capitol Hill majorities since the 1940s, despite the elections being a referendum on Trump.

Biden’s more proactive approach to crime is being mimicked at the state and local level in New York. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week declared a state of emergency over gun violence so he can finance anti-firearm measures before his 2022 reelection bid. He signed a bill permitting people hurt by weapons to sue negligent sellers and manufacturers as well.

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Cuomo’s decision coincided with tough-on-crime Eric Adams winning the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. Adams, a retired black police captain, ran on a platform of reforming law enforcement, taking crime and misconduct seriously so New York received “the justice we deserve and the safety we need.”

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