Midterm Issues Watch: Law and Order
Democrats have responded to voter concerns over crime with an own goal
New York State is as azure as they come: a Democratic Party stronghold to rival California. In the Empire State, Republican gubernatorial hopefuls aren’t very hopeful at all—they’re dead candidates walking from the moment they accept their party’s nomination. But in this election cycle, things are different. The GOP candidate, Lee Zeldin is running close behind the Democratic incumbent, Kathy Hochel, who replaced the disgraced Andrew Cuomo after he was driven from office. The most recent Real Clear Politics average of polls has Hochel up by 6.2%. By way of comparison, Cuomo won reelection in 2018 by a 22.2% margin.
What goes on?
In New York as in many other places around the country, what goes on is that Americans are acutely concerned about rising crime rates and declining public safety. Depending on which poll you consult, it’s second or third on the list of voter concerns. And it’s a very bad issue for the Democratic Party.
In hindsight it’s clear to see that George Floyd riots in 2020, which were accompanied by a push by progressives to defund or abolish police departments, put the Democrats in a box. Even before the riots, progressive prosecutors in many cities were enacting their version of criminal justice reform—with parlous results for cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco. And though it may well be true that more moderate congressional Democrats did not really support the idea of defunding the police, in the frenetic hothouse atmosphere of 2020 they kept their mouths shut. The party’s progressive wing, with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Squaddies in the lead, ran with the idea of abolishing the cops and emptying the prisons. But all they accomplished was to get Democrats branded as the anti-law and order party.
It hasn’t helped that the Democratic Party’s progressive base harbors wildly exaggerated ideas about police violence against minorities, blacks in particular. While in fact 135 unarmed black people, male and female, were shot and killed by police officers between 2015 and 2021, progressives believe that the total is many times higher, running into the hundreds or even thousands. They also tend to assume that every police shooting of an unarmed black person is criminal conduct, which simply is not true. These persistent attitudes have made it hard for Democrats to shake the anti-police image with which they’ve been saddled.
At first, Democrats and their media allies treated this as a minor problem, waving away concerns over the rising tide of crime. But as the situation steadily worsened, their attempts to minimize the issue seemed more and more like gaslighting: Move along folks, nothing to see here. But there’s been plenty to see, for example in Portland, Oregon which since 2020 has devolved into a lawless urban wasteland.
Oregon, like New York and California, is a blue state with a strong progressive political tradition. But public safety has become a potent issue in this year’s three-way gubernatorial election. The Republican candidate, Christine Drazan, currently leads her opponents and the election is trending in her direction. The incumbent Democratic governor, who is term-limited, is deeply unpopular, and by a wide margin Oregonians say that their state is on the wrong track. Economic issues, crime and the homeless crisis. are the top three issues in Oregon, which may well elect a Republican governor for the first time since 1982.
Back in New York, incumbent governor Kathy Hochel is still favored to win. But her single-digit lead over her GOP opponent spells bad news down the ticket for Democrats. Even if he loses, Lee Zeldin’s surprisingly strong challenge may help to flip six or eight House seats to the GOP. His top issue: Law and order.
The Democratic Party’s failure to confront that issue has been a gift to Republicans all over the country. The bad news is impossible to ignore: a rising tide of murders, assaults, muggings, carjackings, vandalism, shoplifting. Major cities, mostly governed by progressive Democrats, are being hit especially hard. Tormented by smash-and grab thievery and chronic shoplifting, no fewer than eleven San Francisco retail chain stores have been closed in the last two years—this the inevitable consequence of policies that effectively decriminalized such offenses. Many other stores have reduced their hours of operation or closed temporarily for the same reason. Most recently, the outdoor clothing company Cotopaxi shuttered its San Francisco store after just one year of operation. Cotopaxi CEO Davis Smith explained the company’s decision in a statement deserving of quotation at length:
It’s sad, but San Francisco appears to have descended into a city of chaos. Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction. One of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the world is now a place where many no longer feel safe visiting or living.
We opened a retail store a year ago on Hayes Street, the charming shopping district just blocks away from the famous Full House home. Our first week there, our windows were smashed and thousands of dollars of product was stolen. We replaced the window, and it immediately happened again (four times). We replaced with window with plywood as we waited for a month+ to get a metal security gate installed (demand for those gates is creating huge delays). As of today, we are closing the store due to rampant organized theft and lack of safety for our team. Our store is hit by organized theft rings several times per week. They brazenly enter the store and grab thousands of dollars of product and walk out. We started keeping the door locked and opening it only for customers, but even then, they’ll have a woman go to the door, and then hiding individuals rush into the store as soon as the door opens.
Our team is terrified. They feel unsafe. Security guards don’t help because these theft rings know that security guards won’t/can’t stop them. It’s impossible for a retail store to operate in these circumstances, especially when cities refuse to take any action (despite us paying taxes well above any other state we operate in). The city recently announced a reduction of police presence in this neighborhood, despite mass-scale crime.
If you want to know why the crime issue is a millstone around the neck of the Democratic Party in 2022…there you have it.