“Mandela doesn’t want to defund the police,” a retired police officer says to the camera in an ad released by Mandela Barnes’s Democratic Senate campaign last week. “He’s very supportive of law enforcement.”
The ad hit Wisconsin airwaves on Friday as Barnes’s Republican opponent, Sen. Ron Johnson, continues to hammer him on the divisive issue of crime.
Barnes’s defense of his law enforcement credentials marks a shift from his position in 2020, when he said he believed police budgets were “overbloated.”
Like Barnes, Democrats across the country are performing a balancing act in response to a growing Republican focus on crime. Candidates have to rebuff accusations of discounting public safety while avoiding positions that put them too far out of step with their party’s liberal base.
Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, said Democrats should turn their focus toward Republicans when facing attacks about their public safety positions.
“I’m advising my clients to point out three things,” Bannon told the Washington Examiner. “One … it’s hard to take Republicans seriously about fighting crime because every single member of Congress voted against the American Rescue Act, which provided cities and states with hundreds of millions of dollars to hire new police officers.”
“Second, this: Republicans talk a lot about crime, but the most prominent Republican in the country, Donald Trump, encouraged an attempt to violently overthrow the results of the democratic election,” Bannon added. “Three, the Republican support of Donald Trump even though he hid top secret documents.”
A number of Democrats have indeed deflected criticism of their party over crime by arguing Republicans have flouted the rule of law, primarily through their association with Trump.
But others have pivoted to an explicitly pro-police platform to counter Republican charges that they haven’t taken law enforcement seriously over the past several years.
For example, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic Senate candidate in the state, has weathered a series of attacks on his record, including scrutiny of his support for pardoning convicted violent offenders in his current position.
Fetterman’s campaign released an ad on Monday that defended his moves against criticism from Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz.
“I’m sick of Oz talking about John Fetterman and crime,” a sheriff says.
The sheriff proceeds to deliver what he says is the “truth” of Fetterman’s criminal justice positions, including that Fetterman supported a “second chance” mostly for nonviolent offenders and that legal experts generally agree with his approach.
Oz has spent weeks hammering Fetterman on crime, most notably on the clemency Fetterman pursued through his work with the state pardons board.
Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan has been on defense in the Ohio Senate race over his past criticism of law enforcement, which his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance, has been eager to exploit.
“I believe that the current criminal justice system is racist. I believe in my heart that it’s the new Jim Crow, a new version of it,” Ryan said in 2019 in remarks that Vance has cited and attacked during the campaign.
Ryan’s campaign dropped an ad over the summer that sought to bolster his credibility on crime.
“Tim Ryan knows defunding the police is ridiculous,” an Ohio sheriff in uniform tells the camera.
Vance has worked to lump Ryan in with Democrats who pushed to dismantle the police in the wake of the 2020 riots.
In New York, Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin reinforced his tough-on-crime message in the state’s gubernatorial race after he was assaulted at a campaign event in July and the man charged with attempting to stab him was released without bail shortly afterward.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has previously defended bail reform laws that have allowed suspected criminals back onto the streets more quickly but has in recent weeks sounded a tougher note on incarceration. She said last month that she wanted district attorneys to “closely examine” their policies.
“Judges have wide discretion to set bail or to hold someone,” she said in August. “I’m putting an emphasis on ‘hold someone.’ That has to happen.”
But with crime trailing other issues, such as the economy, in terms of voters’ top concerns, some Republicans think GOP candidates would be better off doubling down on inflation instead of rising violence.
“Midterms historically are all about the economy, and this year is no different. Republicans should be going full steam ahead on hammering home the poor state of the economy and the adverse effect of inflation, rising interest rates, and government spending and increased taxes,” Brad Blakeman, a former top aide to President George W. Bush and a Republican strategist, told the Washington Examiner. “Collateral issues like crime take a back seat to bread and butter issues that affect every single American.”
Crime has factored heavily even into races in which Republicans have little expectations of success.
Tiffany Smiley, the Republican candidate for Senate in Washington state, released an ad last week that tied her Democratic opponent to businesses in Seattle that have closed their doors due to the city’s skyrocketing crime.
“Thirty years in the Senate, and this is what she has to show for it?” Smiley says of Democratic Sen. Patty Murray as she gestures to a backdrop of an abandoned city storefront. “If she won’t do the job, I will.”
Although crime ranked slightly behind abortion in terms of top Washington voter concerns in a recent poll, Smiley’s focus on the issue has helped give her momentum.
Washington is a deeply blue state that Joe Biden carried by 19 points in 2020. But recent polls suggest Murray is facing a strong challenge from Smiley in her reelection bid; a Trafalgar Group poll conducted last week showed Murray leading Smiley by just 2 points.
When pressed on crime, Murray has advocated more gun control and community services to help with things such as mental health crises.
