Biden tries to preempt Republican attacks on crime ahead of midterm elections
by Naomi Lim, White House Reporter |
August 30, 2022 07:00 AM
President Joe Biden is hoping to counter Republican criticisms of spiking crime before the fall's FBI data dump and November's midterm elections.
Although the issue of crime may not energize Democrats like Republicans, Biden and congressional Democrats are seeking to appeal to swing voters and independents who, along with the Democratic base, may back the party's gun reforms.
Biden is promoting his Safer American Plan by addressing gun crime in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday, his first midterm campaign trip after returning from his summer vacation. Berwood Yost, director of the Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research in Lancaster, contended the speech could puncture the Republican "narrative" that Democrats' policies have failed.
"If the narrative is that the Biden administration and his colleagues in Washington, they have not been successful in the way that they've guided the country, I think you can fit a whole bunch of policies into that," Yost told the Washington Examiner. "They can say things aren't working, whether it's the economy, whether it's the safety of your local schools or your local community."
For Yost, Wilkes-Barre is not the most obvious destination for Biden's gun-focused trip, postponed from July after the president's first COVID-19 diagnosis. But Biden did spend some of his childhood in nearby Scranton.
"In our last poll, only 6% mentioned crime-violence as the biggest problem facing the state," he said. "I'd say at this point, the issue is well behind concerns about the economy."
"People do generally support more gun regulations, just like they generally favor abortion rights," Yost added. "So if you can talk about that in a way that's moderated, that probably helps you with certain constituencies in this state, particularly suburban women voters."
Yet the political environment is slightly different in Wisconsin, another 2022 and 2024 battleground state to which Biden is expected to travel next week, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison Elections Research Center Director Barry Burden.
"In a survey I conducted of people who voted in the August primary in Wisconsin, crime and guns were the top issue among Democratic voters, ranking just above inflation," he said. "The issue was much less important to Republicans and presumably was more about crime than gun safety."
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