Republicans have Democrats nationwide on the ropes over local governing failures on issues such as crime, a vulnerability that could cost them at the ballot box if left unaddressed.
President Donald Trump has spent the past several months pushing the issue of state and local crime to the foreground of U.S. politics by either sending or threatening to send federalized troops to Democrat-led cities such as Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Memphis, Oakland, and Washington, D.C. His administration has highlighted failures by state leaders and painted their handling of public safety as abysmal.
Trump has called Baltimore a “hellhole” and Los Angeles a lawless “trash heap,” and he posted a parody image from Apocalypse Now featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city.
For 2028 presidential hopefuls, such as Govs. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), JB Pritzker (D-IL), and Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), how they handle characterizations of cities in their states carries outsize weight. Scrutiny over what are typically seen as state issues could not only tank their political aspirations but also hurt other Democrats.
“Republicans are already laying out their playbook for 2026 and 2028: Turn every Democratic misstep into a national talking point,” Tom Letizia, a crisis manager and political consultant, told the Washington Examiner. “They’ll point to crime in big cities, homelessness, high taxes, and everyday cost-of-living struggles as the ‘Democratic blueprint.’ Then they’ll hang those failures around the necks of governors like Newsom, Pritzker, and Whitmer before those candidates even get to define themselves.”
Letizia, who has managed and won every Las Vegas mayoral race for the past 25 years, called it “discipline strategy.”
“Frame the midterms and the 2028 presidential race not as a choice of vision but as a referendum on Democratic governance,” he said. “And if Democrats don’t answer with results and a sharper message, Republicans will succeed in defining the narrative long before voters go to the polls.”
Last year, Trump made inroads in blue states like California, New York, and New Jersey by calling out crime. This stunned the Democratic Party because it struck a nerve with blue-state voters. Since then, Trump has made splashy speeches and taunted Newsom and Pritzker over crime in their states, forcing them to walk a fine line between pushing back and acknowledging constituents’ concerns about public safety.
“Donald Trump is driving an anti-crime agenda that has a clear narrative and purpose, which means it’s far easier to communicate success and redirect failure,” Dustin Siggins, founder at Proven Media Solutions, told the Washington Examiner. “This stands in stark contrast to Democrats, who don’t have clear policy prescriptions or voices representing those prescriptions. These realities will negatively impact Democrats until they have a unified message that can proactively drive successful outcomes, because running solely on an ‘anti-Trump’ platform won’t win voters’ trust.”
Republicans have been perfecting the strategy of turning local governing failures into national ones that Democrats have to defend. Every time a state-level Democratic misstep happens, it is turned into a national crisis and multiplied by Republican coordination, said strategist Steve Morris, founder and CEO of NEWMEDIA.COM.
“The thing about this coordinated state-level game that Republicans are playing is that it sweeps Democratic opposition along with it,” Morris told the Washington Examiner. “It’s not just a bad week for any particular governor. It’s a bad week for all Democrats because it happened under Democratic governance.”
Like Morris, Letizia predicted the GOP would continue to hammer Democrats by nationalizing local missteps, pushing cultural wedge issues, and viewing the economy through the lens of grocery bills, housing costs, and gas prices.
“They’ll brand Democrats as incompetent and out of touch while casting themselves as the party of basic competence and accountability,” he said.
Jeff Le, managing principal at 100 Mile Strategies, cautioned that Trump’s strategy on crime is not without risk. He told the Washington Examiner that Democratic governors with reported presidential aspirations could “seize on the perceived overreach while also sweeping away persistent failings in reducing homelessness and combating high costs of living.”
Newsom, whose national profile has risen significantly since Trump took office, has used his social media reach to push back on the president’s claims that blue states are dangerous. He has accused Trump of exaggerating statistics and manipulating the situation to stoke fear for political gain.
Newsom amplified his complaints on X and drew a comparison between California’s homicide rate and that of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. All those states have Republican governors and homicide rates much higher than California’s.
NEWSOM COMPARES CALIFORNIA’S HOMICIDE RATE TO RED STATES: DOES HE HAVE A POINT?
“If the president is sincere about the issue of crime and violence, there’s no question in my mind that he’ll likely be sending the troops into Louisiana and Mississippi,” Newsom said.
Pritzker has also been trying to change the narrative on crime. The Democratic billionaire accused Trump of deploying National Guard troops to cities to scare voters and ensure Republicans walk away with wins in next year’s elections. Pritzker condemned a plan to send the National Guard to Chicago as “unprecedented, unwarranted, illegal, unconstitutional, and un-American.”
Republicans have also taken Democrats to task over balancing the budget, arguing if they can’t make it work in their home states, they shouldn’t be allowed to level up.
When Newsom released his revised budget proposal in May, it came with a new $12 billion shortfall. He was heavily criticized for his handling of the state’s finances and faulted for spending policies and “fiscal mismanagement.” Newsom blamed the shortfall on Trump’s tariffs and suggested California, the world’s fourth-largest economy, had suffered unjustly.
“We don’t live in Plato’s Republic,” Newsom said. “California is under assault. The United States of America, in many respects, is under assault because we have a president that’s been reckless in terms of assaulting those growth engines. Best to call this a Trump Slump.”
Can more Democrats fight back and blunt Republican efforts to portray them as too incompetent to lead the nation? Political strategist Kaivan Shroff thinks more Democrats should follow Newsom and Pritkzer and fight back. He added that while Republicans have “mastered the art of honing in on one small example and making it a national referendum,” opportunities still exist for Democrats to turn the tables.
“The truth is, voters don’t just punish failure — they reward solutions,” he told the Washington Examiner. “So, just as there is the risk of a negative example, there is opportunity in the positive one. Democrats who show up locally with real fixes on crime, housing, and budgets can turn GOP attack ads into proof of Democratic leadership.”
