In the shifting political landscape of the urban South, the debate over crime and public safety has emerged as a central issue, influencing both rhetoric and policy from the local level all the way to the presidential race. In an August rally, former President Donald Trump derided Atlanta city officials: “Under these kinds of woke, radical left policies, Atlanta is like a killing field.” In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris, in an official statement, claimed, “Violent crime is at a near 50-year low.” According to a CBS analysis of FBI data and a factcheck of the candidates’ rhetoric, “reported violent crime is at or near a 50-year low.”
Yet, in down-ballot races in large cities in the urban South like Atlanta, Houston, and Memphis, crime remains a top issue for voters. The issue has shifted what was already a fairly conservative Democratic electorate even further to the right.
Over the past two years, Atlanta’s mayor Andre Dickens implemented a series of policies, cracking down on crime and bolstering the police, a radical departure from Democrats’ rhetoric during the 2020 George Floyd protests. When Mayor Dickens took office in 2022, his city faced a crisis. Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, which shoulders much of the city’s tax burden, wanted to secede over concerns about violent crime. Buckhead’s population of wealthy, older, white citizens form a powerful high-turnout constituency in Atlanta and are a key source of donations for local candidates. Buckhead also has some of the lowest crime rates in the city.
The loudest complaints about rising violent crime often come from places like Buckhead, which assert their political power across the urban South. Houston’s new mayor, Democrat John Whitmire, structured his entire campaign around a tough-on-crime narrative. He beat a more progressive Democratic opponent thanks to votes and funding from both moderate Democrats and Republicans.
In Memphis, the new mayor, Paul Young, was elected by a similar racial and socio-economic coalition, running a campaign that focused on crime. Young not only voted in Republican Primaries, but also worked as the director of legislative affairs for a Republican mayor before announcing he was a Democrat just in time for the 2023 election. Republican leadership in the state has started targeting Memphis, which is the only remaining Democratic stronghold in an overwhelmingly Republican state. Their messaging in Memphis similarly revolves around the issue of crime. Yet in Atlanta, Houston, and Memphis, violent crime declined from 2023 to 2024.
It is easy to say that there is a gap between perception and reality, but, in politics, perception is reality. And the reality is that, although crime rates may actually be decreasing in the urban South, people are certainly not feeling it.
Democrats like Harris have struggled to craft an appealing message on crime for years, in part because a significant portion of Democrats’ primary voters favor rehabilitative justice. Republicans have successfully used the 2020 George Floyd protests to label Democrats as “soft-on-crime.” Though it is unclear whether “tough” or “soft” on crime tactics are more effective, “tough-on-crime” tends to be more intuitive and lends itself to easier campaign messaging.
Harris has tried to delicately straddle the two approaches in the past by pushing a “Smart on Crime” approach (the title of one of her books) in the 2020 primaries, but this approach backfired, alienating both constituencies. Harris seems to have shifted towards tough-on-crime messaging, touting her background as a courtroom prosecutor. Nevertheless, she is fighting an uphill battle against Democrats’ perceived softness and a perception of increased crime across the Urban South. Trump, on the other hand, has adopted an unabashed tough-on-crime approach.
We will have to wait and see whose strategy is more effective. Either way, the success of each candidate’s messaging will have significant implications on down-ballot races in the competitive urban South.