To many Washington insiders, President Trump’s early August Beltway crime crackdown seemed like an opportunistic and hamhanded pivot after getting walloped for weeks over the Jeffrey Epstein affair.
But if it wasn’t clear then, it is now: The White House’s public safety play is a deliberate ploy to refocus the narrative on an issue that favors Republicans ahead of the midterms — one that’s already backing Democrats into a corner.
The president in recent days is leaning even further into using the National Guard as a glorified police force, visiting the troops and allowing them to be armed. He’s suggested he’s eyeing Chicago and New York next for their next deployment. On Sunday, he needled Maryland Gov. Wes Moore for Baltimore’s notorious crime statistics, hinting he could send troops there as well.
It's a sign that despite polling showing how unpopular Trump’s moves are in Washington, the president is playing to a national audience — and betting this is a battle he and the GOP can win. If his recent escalation was an attempt to goad Democrats into declaring that crime isn’t a problem, repelling swing voters in the process, top Democrats did not disappoint him.
Over the weekend, Democratic Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Kathy Hochul of New York released statements arguing that crime in their cities was down or that there’s no “emergency” requiring the National Guard. Other Democrats have glossed over voters’ concerns about public safety, deriding Trump as an “authoritarian.”
The problem is that while some voters might not like overtly political power grabs, history shows they dislike feeling unsafe even more. Expanding homeless encampments and drug overdoses in plain view have left many of them fearful.
Dan Turrentine, a Democratic strategist and host of the 2Way podcast “The Morning Meeting,” called crime “an 80-20 issue.”
“Just like with immigration, Trump has found another issue where the Democratic Party is on a back foot. They don't want to admit that there's a problem — even though nobody in New York City, Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles or San Francisco would say things are good,” he said. “The fact that we have people arguing that crime is not a problem is crazy.”
“[Trump] senses that it's a vulnerability on the part of Democrats — and it is,” GOP strategist Karl Rove told me. “It galvanizes public attention, keeps the Epstein issue and to a lesser extent the Ukrainian war issue off the front pages and keeps the focus on the controversy between the president and the big-city Democrats.”
A White House official said Trump is giddy about the prospect of “forcing the Democrats to defend the indefensible.” Nobody wants to walk outside and have to worry about getting mugged or carjacked, the person argued. Democrats will have to “either side with Donald Trump, or side with crime and murder.”
“To the president, this is basic, common-sense shit,” the official said.
Going back to Richard Nixon, Republicans' tough-on-crime messaging has long won them favor with American voters. Their advantage has continued in recent years.
In 2022, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) changed the trajectory of his struggling reelection campaign by attacking his Democratic opponent for supporting ending cash bail and decreasing police funding. Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes responded by accusing Johnson of being a hypocrite given his support for Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. It didn’t work.
That was followed by the nationwide backlash against progressive district attorneys, mayors and other local leaders who eased up on prosecutions and embraced decriminalization experiments inspired by the George Floyd protests in 2020. Even in liberal cities such as Portland, San Francisco and Chicago, Democratic voters rejected criminal justice overhauls and elected officials they felt would be tougher on crime.
Earlier this month, CNN’s data guru Harry Enten dug into polling on crime and declared that Trump is “like Air Jordan towering over [former President] Joe Biden” on crime issues. While Biden was underwater on crime by 26 points in 2024, Trump had a plus-one favorability on the matter in August, just before his National Guard moves.
“Americans are far more hawkish on crime than a lot of Democrats want to admit,” Enten said.
Perhaps that’s why a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll taken last week found that 54 percent of voters believe Trump’s actions in Washington were “justified and necessary” — and just as many thought his show-of-force would make the area safer.
It’s possible the polling could shift. Politics is a pendulum, and with Republicans in power and Trump shattering norms by putting service members on the beat, voters could move in a new direction.
Rove himself questions whether this will play in the midterms. Crime is most salient to voters when there are riots, mass protests and other types of urban distress, he argued — something we’re not seeing right now, even if it is a top worry. Also, “one of the ironies is when there is success in something, the issue tends to dissipate,” he said. The more secure the border is, the less important it is to voters. Ditto with crime.
But Hill Republicans are cheering Trump’s latest cause. To understand why, look at the congressional maps: The GOP’s midterm battleground runs through suburban seats outside of major cities, places like Long Island and the suburbs of Philly and Atlanta.
Just as helpful for Republicans is that the focus on crime could draw the spotlight from Medicaid cuts and the economy writ large, where voters are still unsettled.
“Any time we are talking about crime is a win,” one senior NRCC official told me. Democrats, he added, are already doing just what they’d hoped: “Replying with indignation that comes across as sympathy for criminals” and citing statistics to argue that crime is no longer an issue when “no one actually feels it’s true.”
The matter is poised to play a starring role in the coming weeks. We could see Trump deploy the National Guard in other big cities and Congress could take up crime-related bills when it returns in September. While Trump has hinted that he might circumvent the legislative branch and declare an emergency to extend his D.C. police takeover — which requires congressional approval after 30 days — there’s already talk among Hill Republicans about making sure Democrats are forced on record in some fashion.
Their hope? That Democrats unify and vote down an extension of the D.C. takeover or other crime measures — then pummel them on the campaign trail as soft on crime.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already poured cold water on extending Trump’s police authority, and I’ve spoken with people in the House who predict House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries can keep all his members in line to oppose such a measure.
The question, however, is whether they should.
Rove said if Democrats were smart they’d use the opportunity to dispel the “soft on crime” narrative Republicans are pushing — and he said there’s an easy model they could summon. When Clinton was accused of being soft on crime in the 1990s, he called for 100,000 new police officers. Democrats could also point out that Trump is blocking local funding for cops.
Turrentine said Democrats should say they agree with Trump that crime is a major problem but propose to do even more. His suggestion: offer proposals to fund hundreds of thousands of new police officers, reform bail laws and force local prosecutors to crack down on small crimes.
Turrentine criticized his own party for not having these kinds of specific solutions. While many voters may not like what Trump is doing, he said, they appreciate that he is doing something.
Polling suggests he’s on to something. A recent survey by the left-leaning group Data for Progress found that majorities of voters agreed that Trump’s power play was “authoritarian” and an attempt to distract from bad headlines. But the same group found that more than half of those polled agreed with this statement: “Trump is doing what's necessary to crack down on crime.”
“The average voter says, ‘Common sense tells me this is a problem. I don't feel safe.’ And you guys don't want to address it,” Turrentine said.
The party, he continued, needs to wake up.
“You know, this issue hurt you in 2024. You know the public perception is that you're soft on crime,” he said. “You need to get on top of this.”
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