Amid this year’s election, Vice President Kamala Harris is more trusted on policing and crime than Donald Trump, a new Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek has found, despite the former president frequently holding a lead on this issue.
While Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has significantly tightened the race in the polls since President Joe Biden stepped down from the race in late July and endorsed her to be his successor, Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, has often polled well on several topics including the economy, the U.S.-Mexico border and crime.
The Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll found that 43 percent of 2,000 U.S adults who were surveyed said they trusted Harris more on policing and crime while 40 percent said they trusted Trump more. Six percent said they trusted “both equally” to handle crime while another 6 percent said they trusted neither. The poll was carried out between September 28 and 29 and has a margin of error of 2.19 percent.
This is a change from Trump’s 43 percent lead on this issue over Harris’ 42 percent in a Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll that was published on August 7.
The issue of crime ranks highly in voters’ priorities, according to a late August-early September Pew Research Center poll, in which 61 percent of registered voters said that violent crime was “very important” in their decision.
According to a September poll from YouGov, 54 percent of respondents believed Trump would handle the issue “very” or “somewhat well” if elected, compared to 46 percent for Harris.
However, a late-August poll from Reuters/Ipsos showed Harris tied with Trump on crime and corruption, both holding 40 percent, changed from a five-point lead for Trump in July. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was carried out between August 23 and 25, among 1,028 adults, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Similarly, a mid-September poll conducted by The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that the two candidates were evenly matched on the issue, both receiving 38 percent of the vote when respondents were asked who would do a better job of handling crime.
Newsweek has contacted the teams for Harris and Trump via email for comment.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Washington, D.C., on October 1. Amid this year’s election, Harris is more trusted on policing and crime than Donald Trump, a new Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek has found, despite the former president frequently holding a lead on this issue.
AP
Meanwhile, the vice president has enjoyed leads with certain demographics who trust her more on multiple issues.
According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, more than eight in 10 Black voters (84 percent) said they would vote for Harris. Meanwhile, 78 percent of Black voters said they were confident Harris could effectively handle law enforcement and criminal justice issues, compared to 24 percent who said the same about Trump.
The poll was conducted between August 26 and September 2, among 936 Black adults, 743 of whom were registered voters.
Trump, who has been endorsed by a handful of police unions and the National Border Patrol Council, has taken a “tough on crime” approach, recently telling a North Carolina crowd about crime levels: “When I’m president of the United States, we’re not going to take it anymore.”
The former president previously called Harris “pro-crime,” a police “defunder” and a “Marxist prosecutor” during a visit at the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office in a town northwest of Detroit, towards the end of August.
Meanwhile, Harris has tried to tout her record as a lawyer, who has previously served as a courtroom prosecutor, district attorney and attorney general in California, who has worked to bring “predators,” “fraudsters,” and “cheaters” to justice.
FBI Releases New Crime Data
Last Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released its preliminary figures on crime in the U.S., which showed a 10.3 percent drop in violent crimes committed between January and June compared to the same period in 2023. Most significantly, murders fell by 22.7 percent, with reported rapes and robberies dropping by 17.7 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively.
The preliminary figures, which were gathered from around 77 percent of law enforcement agencies across the country, follow the annual Crime in the Nation statistics, released by the bureau on September 23. It showed a roughly three percent drop in violent crime from 2022 to 2023, as well as an 11.6 percent drop in murder and non-negligent manslaughter, and a 9.4 percent decline in rape.
In August, Biden claimed the American Rescue Plan, signed into law in March 2021, had cut homicides significantly by “deliver[ing] $15 billion to cities and states to invest in public safety and violence prevention, keeping cops on the beat while working with community leaders to interrupt and prevent crime.”
“Americans are safer today than when Vice President Harris and I took office,” the statement read. “We can’t stop now.”
When contacted for comment on the figures, the Trump campaign said that recent data from the 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey, a program run by the Department of Justice‘s (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Statistics, painted a different picture of the state of American law and order.
The survey, which gathers responses from American households, rather than law enforcement agencies, found that crimes such as sexual assault, aggravated assault and robbery had in fact increased significantly between 2020 and 2023.
“If Kamala is given another four years and the chance to implement her weak-on-crime, defund the police, no cash bail policies, America will continue to turn into a crime-ridden hellhole for illegal immigrants, Venezuelan gangsters, and drug dealers,” the campaign said.
