In yet more good news for the former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, it appears that his tough stance on crime, much in contrast to the general impression of the Biden-Harris Administration as being soft on crime, is now helping him mightily in the election and could help him pick up critical swing states.
In fact, it appears that the state of things in four of the key battleground states, a couple of which Trump must pick up to win the election, means that crime and being tough rather than soft on it is a key issue. The states particularly at issue regarding crime, though it is a concern everywhere, are Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona.
News on that comes from a fresh poll from the Washington Post and Schar School. It was conducted between September 30 and October 15, 2024, and found that in four of the five key swing states, the aforementioned four, crime is a massive issue for voters and is much on their minds.
Further, and related, the poll revealed that the former president holds a substantial lead amongst voters in those swing states on the crime issue, as voters trust him to take on crime and handle the matter much more than they trust Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to handle the issue. In fact, voters trust him more on the issue by roughly ten points.
That makes sense, as VP Harris once seemed to support the idea of defunding the police. She said, speaking on New York-based radio program “Ebro in the Morning” on June 9, 2020, “This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities.” She also claimed at the time that US cities were “militarizing police” but “defunding public schools.”
Her supporters have since tried to distance her from that. For example, shortly before Biden dropped out, Mitch Landrieu, national co-chair for the Biden-Harris campaign, said, “Her position has always been that you can both be tough and smart on crime, and it requires funding police, but it also requires funding rehabilitation and things that might criminal justice system safer. You can do both.” She added, “Our actions indicate that she wants to fund the police, but she wants to do the other things as well.”
Meanwhile, the Trump Campaign has stayed tough on the crime issues. For example, Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump believes criminals should spend time behind bars, unlike Kamala Harris, who wants to eliminate cash bail.” Similarly, she told the New York Times, “President Trump believes anyone convicted of a crime should spend time behind bars.”
Similarly, in a Michigan speech, Trump said, “Kamala Harris will deliver crime, chaos, destruction and death.” He continued, “You’ll see levels of crime that you’ve never seen before. … I will deliver law, order, safety and peace.” He also said, in contrast to Kamala’s cop comments, “Our policemen and women have the backs of law-abiding citizens every day. When we go back to the White House, you’re going to see support the likes of which you haven’t seen, certainly in four years.”
Watch a Trump ad on Kamala’s crime stance here:
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