President Donald Trump’s recent focus on urban crime presents a classic dilemma for Democrats.
If they point out that his lurid portrait of a violent epidemic is inaccurate, they risk turning off voters who agree with him on an emotional level. But if they go along with it, they risk legitimizing his power grab.
Trump and his Republican allies clearly hope to ride this issue all the way into next year’s midterms, so Democrats need to come up with a counteroffensive soon.
Fortunately for them, there is a group of Democrats who know exactly how to run — and win — while talking about fighting crime effectively: big-city mayors.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott told me that they are in a much better position than members of Congress or other national Democratic leaders to push back against Trump on crime.
“They should be lifting us up and allowing us to be the folks that are pushing the message, instead of trying to do the same thing that they always do,” he said. “They don’t know anything about reducing crime and violence. They don’t have to do it. They don’t have to deal with it.”
Democrats don’t just win mayoral races in the U.S. these days; they dominate them. Twenty-one of the 25 biggest cities in the U.S. are run by Democrats.
In each of those races, they face a similar set of local issues: taxes, schools and crime.
On the national level, voters tend to trust Republicans more to fight crime, yet Democrats regularly win mayoral races on the issue. That’s because they take the issue seriously.
When crime happens, mayors are the first responders of politics. After a mass shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school earlier this week, Mayor Jacob Frey gave an emotional speech from the scene about the need for more than just thoughts and prayers.
Mayors also understand at a gut level something national Democrats often overlook, which is that emotional truth matters as much as the facts on the ground.
It’s a similar issue Democrats faced with the economy in 2024. The macroeconomics and the data sheets pointed to a resilient economy, but how people felt about the economy overpowered all of that.
You can’t win a race for mayor by pointing to a spreadsheet if voters are scared.
At the local level, the same is true for crime. You can’t win a race for mayor by pointing to a spreadsheet if voters are scared.
“Every good police executive also has to be concerned about the perception of crime. If the numbers are going down and people are not feeling safe, then you’re in the same place. You have a crime problem,” said former Rep. Val Demings, who previously served as a police chief.
Like most Democrats, Demings thinks Trump’s decision to send armed National Guard troops into D.C. and take over the local police department is a political stunt and a massive overreach.
But at the same time, she was clear the party has to embrace a smarter message on public safety, an issue that cuts across race, education and socioeconomic status.
When Republicans propose throwing more police at the problem, Democrats can be the party that focuses on initiatives that have been tested and shown to reduce the “social ills that caused decay in the first place,” such as high unemployment, substandard education and poor housing and living conditions, she said.
Other Democratic strategists said that the party will also need to talk directly to the people hurt by crime, making sure they feel heard and having nuanced conversations that don’t just resort to talking points. Polls show that Democrats face a crime problem. A recent AP-NORC survey found that two-thirds of U.S. adults think crime is a major problem in the country overall, and 81% think it’s a major concern in cities. Only 24% of voters thought crime was a major problem in their own community. At the same time, only 24% of voters thought crime was a major problem in their own community. Trump could easily overplay his hand, too. While the majority of respondents supported the idea of having the U.S. military and National Guard assist local police, most opposed the idea of the federal government taking control of a police department, as Trump did in D.C. It was also easier for Trump to send the National Guard into D.C., which is not a state. If he follows through on his threat to send it into cities such as Baltimore, Chicago and New York over the objection of state and local officials, the mood might shift. The mayors of those cities could play a big role in that. Baltimore’s Scott, who is in constant touch with other Democratic mayors of big cities, says they are frustrated that the national party isn’t making more use of them. Imagine if the Democratic National Committee held weekly events with mayors across the country on what they are doing to reduce crime. Or if the DNC or any of the other organizations tasked with winning elections were cutting and funding ads that could uplift the work of these mayors across the country. Is it a silver bullet? No. But just spewing facts at people isn’t going to solve the perception issue. “There is no way to have a winning message or strategy around gun violence, the drop in crime and all of that, and not include local mayors. Because at the end of the day, when it goes bad, they too are calling the mayor. ‘What are you and the police doing? What is this community violence intervention group doing?’ So now, let us lead. And you can lead from behind,” he said. For more thought-provoking insights from Eugene Daniels, watch “The Weekend” every Saturday and Sunday from 7 to 10 a.m. ET on MSNBC.
Eugene Daniels is an MS NOW senior Washington correspondent and co-host of "The Weekend." Recommended
