I never put too much stock in any particular survey of voters, but when you keep seeing the same result over and over again in multiple polls, I think it's fair to assume those results are at least broadly accurate. When it comes to which party voters trust more on crime, the answer is undeniably "Republicans", who regularly lead Democrats by double digits, including a 20-point margin in a Reuters/Ipsos poll from late September and a 22-point lead in another recent Washington Post/Ipsos poll.
The group headed up by Gabby "No More Guns" Giffords, though, is telling Democrats that there's a way to blunt the GOP's advantage on crime and public safety: by leaning in on anti-gun agenda in the midterms. According to POLITICO, a private poll sponsored by Giffords and House Majority Forward that's being circulated to Democratic candidates shows just 38% of the voters in swing districts favor Democrats on crime. But that same poll allegedly shows Democrats erasing that decline by playing up certain gun control issues.
Voters also reported preferring Republicans to Democrats with preventing and reducing crime and cracking down on violent crime — gaps that grew among swing voters.
But, in a hint of hope for the party looking to neutralize a weakness President Donald Trump will exploit next year, those voters swung toward Democrats in all four categories after hearing messaging acknowledging crime is a problem and showing steps the party has taken to increase safety. Specifically, pollsters cited cracking down on gun trafficking and strengthening firearm background checks. The persuasion effort included criticisms of GOP cuts to gun-violence prevention funding, the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back firearm regulations and Republicans’ ties to pro-gun groups.
The double-digit swings gave Democrats a 2-point advantage when respondents were asked about crime reduction, 4 points on keeping people safe and 6 points on crime prevention. The shifts were even more pronounced among swing voters.
Democrats also shrunk the GOP advantage on preventing violent crime to 1 point.
There are a couple of things worth noting here. First, while we don't have the specific language used in the poll, it sounds like pollsters didn't include any messaging on "assault weapon" bans, which is interesting given how invested groups like Giffords are in promoting state-level bans at the moment. I also find it very odd that voters would swing towards Democrats by 20 points or more when reminded about Democrats adding addititional background check requirements for 18-to-21-year-olds through the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed back in 2022, when those same voters have presumably been getting that same message from Democratic candidates over the past two election cycles.
The POLITICO story also suggests that the messaging Giffords is pushing Democrats to use doesn't involve the phrases "gun control" or even "gun safety."
“We do not want people to get shot or stabbed or carjacked. We want to hold people accountable when they break the law. None of that is revolutionary. But we do have to actually say that,” Emma Brown, Giffords’ executive director, said.
And of course, no new gun laws are needed to hold violent criminals accountable for their actions. But Giffords and other gun control groups aren't just interested in enforcing the gun laws that are currently in place. They want to hold people accountable for breaking the gun laws they want to enact; bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and magazines, prohibiting carrying concealed firearms for self-defense in almost every publicly accessible space, and mandatory gun storage laws that require firearms to be locked up with ammunition stored separately unless they're actively being carried inside your own home, to name just a few.
I'm already seeing a shift in how Democrats are talking about crime in campaign ads in the off-year elections in Virginia, where gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger is boasting about her law enforcement background and Attorney General candidate Jay Jones is bragging about getting tough on violent offenders instead of defunding the police. The problem for Democrats, though, is that most Republican candidates can counter that message with one of their own: Democrats want to turn you into criminals for exercising a fundamental civil right. Unfortunately, that message isn't being used by Spanberger's opponent Winsome Earle-Sears or Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares in his ads targeting Jay Jones (at least as far as I've seen as a Virginia voter).
We know Democrats are going to run on gun control next year, but they're still struggling to find a message that ties in to public safety and concerns about crime that resonates with voters. Giffords claims to have found the answer, but then, the group has a vested interest in creating both policies and talking points for Democratic candidates to use.
