Crime and the Midterms
People may not be as gullible as some politicians think
A recurring theme in this newsletter is the gap between the media narrative about crime blown out of proportion by conservative candidates and what we actually know about crime, what contributes to it, and what to do about it. There are a host of experts that can help fill in the real story (which is still complex). While I’ve cited several in previous newsletters, this piece by
in stands out by providing a summary of the many variables involved in crime and crime control.There are other indications that the country is currently in a state of despair, plagued by anger, short tempters, stress, and general despondence. Over the last two years, we've seen aberrant surges in highway fatalities, drug overdoses, anxiety and depression, domestic violence, and alcohol consumption. There aren’t nearly enough therapists and mental health professionals to meet demand. Even our average blood pressure is higher. Also, aggravated assaults were one of the few other classes of crime to go up in 2020. That’s the sort of crime you tend to see when people are angry.
These aren’t problems solved by cable news soundbites and easy, tough-on-crime policies.
Sociologically, this is an excellent analysis. It shows that there are social factors associated with shifts in crime rates and these defy individualistic patterns.1 Nevertheless, the campaigns that (mercifully) ended last night were full of causal statements blaming particular candidates for at least being insensitive to crime, if not actively advocating for pro-crime policies.
These attacks were not subtle. In Wisconsin, Ron Johnson continually went after Madela Barnes for past comments on police reform and cash bail reform — including indirectly linking his support for the latter to the guy who drove into the Christmas parade in Kenosha.2 Over in Pennsylvania, the Oz campaign attacked John Fetterman for his work with the parole board and his support for sentence commutation of long-term prisoners. Again, subtlety is not a language they speak; I read yesterday that the Oz campaign set the press wireless password as “InmatesforFetterman”.
Were these attacks determinative in the election? Probably not. While we always have to take exit polls with a sizable block of salt, it’s what we’ve got until better data comes out based on actual votes. Exit polls break the vote by demographics but also asks what issues people thought were important to their vote. Here is the national data on that question:
There’s some interesting stuff in this little chart. First, notice the percentages underneath the five topics. Inflation3 was most important for 31% of voters, followed by abortion at 27%. Crime and Gun Policy4 were each the top issue for 11% of voters with Immigration5 coming in at 10% (I assume 10% didn’t answer).
For those who thought Crime was their top issue, Republican candidates outperformed Democrats by 16%. For those who thought Guns were primary, Democrats had a 23% advantage. (How you treat crime and guns as separate issues is beyond me.) The long term analysis will likely focus on the ways in which Inflation and Abortion are nearly directly offset (R+43 and D+53, respectively).
Back to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. These two states (along with New York) stood out by highlighting crime as a divisive issue. So how did that work for the Johnson-Barnes race? It is true that Crime was one percent more likely to be the top issue. On the other hand, those who thoughts so favored Johnson but only by 23%. (Another question gave Johnson extra points for experience.)6
How did Crime help Oz? Again, Pennsylvania exit polls showed Crime as important for 11% of voters. However, Fetterman won those voters by 2% — not far removed from the 3.6% that was his actual margin of victory (at this point).
A recent opinion piece in The Appeal written the day before election day picked up on many of the themes raised in the earlier piece by Radley Balko. The article focuses on victims rather than crime statistics.
So as you’re bombarded with a final round of fearmongering attack ads about crime, remember that they are just one extreme example of our broken approach to public safety. To chart a better path forward, our decision-makers must engage with the people who know firsthand just how deeply flawed the current system is. Instead of co-opting victims’ voices, political candidates and elected officials should center them.
And what about the media members who took all this talk of crime and made it even bigger? This is partly a result of the repetition of stories as they unfold.7 Part of it is because the media assumes that the pressure is on the candidate attacked to respond rather than on the attacker to explain themselves in context. There's also the huge problem that pundits and analysts who love the horserace coverage fail to learn from their errors or be held to account by others.
wrote about this today in his newsletter :If any of them was as off-base, as consistently, as political “experts” are, we’d look for someone else to do those jobs.
Or ask whether it even needs doing. Which in politics it only rarely does. If you had never read an “expert” analytic column about “what this means for the midterms,” or gone to a single political-insider panel discussion, you’d be about as well informed on what has just happened as if you’d spent all day every day doom scrolling.
I don’t want to land on the “kitchen table issues” trope. But finding out what voters care about rather than trying to manipulate them into voting for you would seem like a wise strategy for any candidates looking at office in 2024.
Durkheim would have expected no less.
Since that wasn’t enough, Johnson ads also made Barnes, who is Black, look darker than he actually is.
One finding in the national exit polls really surprised me. Respondents were asked if the condition of the economy was Excellent (2%), Good (21%), Not So Good (38%), or Poor (38%). Democrats won the Not So Good group by 27%.
The first GenZ candidate ever elected to congress, Maxwell Frost, was part of the March for Our Lives rally after the Parkland shooting.
I guess all the talk about Open Borders! and Rainbow Fentanyl! might not have registered that much with voters. Perhaps they recognize hype when they see it (as some early analysis out of Arizona suggests).
Although my admittedly partisan take is that experience doesn’t mean good experience, but whatever.
I was reminded of this by a story in The Denver Post about an apartment fire that killed a woman and her child. The next story was about the fire being arson. The third was about the search for two juveniles of interest. The fourth was about the arrest of those juveniles. One incident — four stories. That creates a piling on effect. Perhaps the first and last stories would have sufficient.