Both leading up to Election Day and in exit polls, voters ranked the economy as their biggest concern and voiced anger that things in the country are on the wrong track. While crime did not top most voters’ list of priorities, beneath the surface the election results reflect a lost sense of safety, security, and stability. If instability is the ticking bomb, fears about crime and immigration are the wick to light the fuse. This cycle, AdImpact data shows that the GOP played upon those fears with a billion-dollar campaign to paint Democrats as “soft on crime” and “weak on the border,” featuring images of “smash and grabs,” “tent cities,” “open borders,” “migrant crime,” and high-profile murders—all of which have far more emotional power than anecdotes of economic struggle.

Left unaddressed and unchecked, dissatisfaction and grievance allowed politicians to drive American voters to blame anyone different from them, including immigrants and transgender people. This is profoundly dangerous to the promise of an inclusive, diverse, multiracial, and multiethnic America, and it undermines the prospect of delivering safety, accountability, and justice for all. In the political arena, it resulted in an unprecedented swing to the right among Black, Latino, and young voters, and in Democratic strongholds like New York and California.

To better understand how crime and immigration played out at the ballot box, Vera Action commissioned GBAO Strategies, a public opinion research and polling firm, to conduct a one-of-a-kind national exit survey from October 31–November 5, 2024, of 1,500 actual voters across the political spectrum. We also studied the trends and outcomes of races up and down the ballot. 

Our main takeaways are:

• Criminal justice reform suffered some high-profile losses this election but also gained some under-the-radar wins.
• Even though crime is declining, perceptions of high crime contributed to the country’s rightward shift—fueled by a massive GOP ad spend on crime and immigration.
• By underspending on crime and immigration messaging, and by primarily running “tough-on-crime” and “tough-on-the-border” ads in response to GOP attacks, Democrats missed an opportunity to close the volume and trust gap around crime with a strong values-based “serious about safety” message.
• As voters wanted to hear more about what Kamala Harris stood for and less about why Donald Trump was unfit, the Harris campaign’s strategy to paint the race as a choice between “prosecutor versus felon” flopped.
• Despite high-profile losses, voter support for criminal justice reform remains strong, and politicians can win voters—especially young voters and Black voters—by leaning into reform.

Read below for the full analysis.

While the Vera Action exit poll showed that crime ranked low among priorities that drove vote choice, fears about crime and fearmongering around criminal justice reform led to some high-profile losses, most notably in California. George Gascon, the incumbent Los Angeles County district attorney who ran and won in 2020 on a reform platform, lost his re-election bid by more than 20 points to a tough-on-crime challenger, Nathan Hochman. In Alameda County, nearly two-thirds of residents voted to recall reform-minded District Attorney Pamela Price two years into her first term. Statewide, Proposition 36, a tough-on-crime ballot measure that ratchets up penalties for some low-level drug and theft offenses, passed with more than 70 percent of the vote. Even Proposition 6, a ballot measure to end slavery in prisons, which comfortably won voter approval in neighboring Nevada this same cycle (joining seven other states), failed to win majority support in California.

Yet recent polling shows that voters still overwhelmingly support criminal justice reform. If true, what was behind this clear defeat? 

One factor is political spending. The proponents of Prop 36, many of whom supported ousting Gascon and Price, heavily outspent their opposition by more than two to one. Challenger Nathan Hochman outspent Gascon by a margin of nearly nine to one. As a result, voters overwhelmingly heard only negatively biased information and even misinformation about reform. Another factor is that reform proponents, like Gascon, until recently tried to counter accusations of reform leading to increased crime by pointing to crime data. Crime rates in California are indeed trending down, but voters report high concerns about homelessness, fentanyl, and opioids—issues not captured in standard crime data, but which many voters associate with safety. 

Across the country, criminal justice reform faced other tough losses. Cannabis legalization, an issue that has galvanized voters across the political spectrum, failed in all three states where it was on the ballot. Arizona voters passed a measure to enlist local police in immigration enforcement, and Colorado voters passed two tough-on-crime ballot measures that will deny bail and expand preventive detention and impose longer sentences through “truth-in-sentencing.” 

However, under the radar, in races where an affirmative message that we can have both safety and justice broke through, there were some important wins.

Predictably, crime remained the GOP’s well-worn central argument this cycle, with rhetoric about “open borders” and “migrant crime” supplanting “defund” as the new page of the Willie Horton playbook.

   

The Willie Horton playbook for Republican candidates—focus on crime and race while painting their Democratic opponents as “soft” on crime—is by now well-worn. Democrats usually respond to such attacks either by remaining silent and pivoting to a more favorable issue (in recent cycles, abortion and democracy) or by responding with an “I-too-am-tough” message. Vera Action polling shows that neither of these responses work, and polling showed that the Harris campaign could have cut into voter support for Trump’s mass deportation plan by messaging with more accurate information around immigration.

Historically, the GOP has held an advantage with voters on this crime, although neither party wins strong approval for their handling of the issue. Yet what stands out in recent election cycles is that the GOP has made crime their central argument.  Political ad spending is one measure of how crime is wielded as a political cudgel. 

According to data from ad tracking firm AdImpact, in 2020, the GOP spent just over $103 million on crime attack ads, primarily attacking Democrats as wanting to “defund the police” and being “dangerously liberal.” In 2022, a midterm election following a pandemic-era increase in crime, the GOP spent $230 million across congressional and local races on crime. In contrast, Democrats spent comparatively little—just over $38 million in 2020 and $168 million in 2022. In 2024 as crime waned and the GOP shifted its safety attacks to “open borders” and “migrant crime,” it spent $1.03 billion on crime and immigration ads. In response, Democrats spent less than a third of that total—$319 million—on immigration and crime ads.

Again, when Democrats did spend ad dollars on either crime or immigration, it was overwhelmingly to insist that they were tough on crime and tough on the border—essentially creating no daylight between a GOP message and a Democratic message on key issues of safety, security, and stability.

On many fronts, Democrats ran a more conservative campaign than in years past. In the presidential race, Kamala Harris’s campaign leaned into the framing of the “prosecutor versus felon,” touted her credentials as a “tough”-on-the-border prosecutor, repeatedly attacked the GOP for failing to pass the Lankford-Sinema-Murphy border bill, dropped opposition to the death penalty from the Democratic platform for the first time in more than a decade, and only occasionally highlighted popular justice reform measures she championed in her past (such as diversion programs, ending a two-tiered system of justice, and greater police accountability).  Exit polling found that only a tiny share of Republicans voted for Harris, a similar or smaller share than had for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton in past races, despite a concerted effort by the Harris campaign to run on moderate and conservative messages and tout endorsements from notable Republicans. 

The strong lean to the right and greater moderation did not break through to voters.

When asked in Vera Action’s exit poll which candidate they heard more from on certain issues, voters said by a margin of 50 percentage points that they heard more from Trump on both crime and the border/immigration—despite the Biden and Harris campaigns spending a collective $143 million on “tough-on-immigration” ads featuring the border and the bipartisan senate border bill, according to AdImpact. 

Democrats will not be able to “out-tough” the GOP on these wedge issues. A stronger approach is to lead with a message that emphasizes a values and policy contrast—otherwise, a message that lands as “GOP-lite” will get lost in the fray.

Many Democrats took advantage of the Harris and Trump matchup to create a “prosecutor versus felon” contrast in messaging and political ads. The conventional wisdom, at least in Democratic circles, was that many American voters would not cast a ballot in support of a “convicted felon.” Yet that proved false. Voters already knew about Trump’s criminal cases, and even his conviction in May 2024 did not move the needle either way in polls. Cynically, Trump used the felony convictions to his advantage with GOP base voters and Black men, declaring himself to be the victim of an unfair criminal justice system. 

A Vera Action poll from May 2024 found that Democrats would do better to focus on voters’ real safety concerns than on Trump’s convictions.

Source: YouGov May 2024 national survey commissioned by Vera Action

By focusing on Trump’s criminal convictions, Democrats missed the opportunity to affirmatively speak to voters’ day-to-day concerns about safety, which were more relevant to their vote choice. On all fronts, voters wanted to hear Kamala Harris’s vision for the future and how she would improve their lives, not why Trump was unfit for office.

While safety is a kitchen table issue for all voters, accountability and justice—reflected in policies that advance criminal justice reform—remain important voting issues to many Americans. The Harris campaign leaned into this early on by highlighting the case of the Exonerated Five (“Central Park Five”) at the DNC and again in an online ad. This was a good start, but it did not go far enough to take advantage of clear voter preferences.

In two recent polls from FWD.us and REFORM Alliance, a big tent of voters, including young voters, Black voters, and even GOP voters, showed majority support for criminal justice reform.

More than half (55 percent) of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supports criminal justice reform.

Additionally, a further 35 percent of likely voters say a candidate supporting criminal justice reform would not affect their choice in who to vote for.

Only 10 percent of voters say they would be less likely to vote for a candidate if they supported criminal justice reform. These numbers show that candidates have little to lose from taking a strong position.

Source: FWD.US

Trump’s extreme positions, such as his national “stop and frisk” mandate, offered an opening for Democrats to create a values contrast on issues that matter to voters. Aside from a few ads, like this one highlighting the risks of expanded “stop and frisk,” Democrats largely ignored the opportunity to use Trump’s own unpopular positions against him—despite highly respected figures in Democratic circles, like journalist Ronald Brownstein, urging the party to do so.

Despite the millions spent by Democrats on a “tough-on-immigration” message in the final months of the presidential campaign (and in many downballot races), an exit poll by Blueprint Strategies found that “too many immigrants illegally crossed the border” remained one of the top reasons why voters ultimately did not back Harris. In contrast, they found that “Kamala Harris is too soft on crime” was not a liability, even though the GOP relentlessly tried to paint Democrats as “dangerously liberal,” and attacked Harris for her past support for bail reform and police accountability. 

What explains the difference in why immigration was a liability and crime appeared to be less so? One reason may be that on immigration, Harris and the Democrats’ message sounded almost indistinguishable from the GOP’s message. In contrast, even though Harris overall spoke about criminal justice reform sparingly on the campaign trail, she was consistent throughout in her support for popular positions like pretrial justice and more police accountability, even featuring the Exonerated Five on stage during the Chicago convention to speak to the injustice of wrongful convictions. 

In Vera Action’s exit polling, which confirms results from previous rounds of polling, when asked about the best approach to addressing crime and public safety, fully 53 percent of voters favored a “serious about safety” approach with a focus on prevention and community-based solutions over a “tough-on-crime” approach. This margin is even larger in the swing states—57 percent to 43 percent.

Importantly, the “serious” message won more Trump voters than the “tough” message did Harris voters—underscoring the point that a “GOP-lite” message on this issue fails to win over independent voters and will not chip away at Trump’s base.

To see if these values held in the context of the candidates, we also tested how Harris would perform with a “serious” message or a “tough” message against Trump. Harris performed better employing a “serious” message against Trump with key constituencies, including swing state voters (+4), independents (+8), and suburban voters (+8). In the test where Harris employed a “tough” message, however, she lost with all three groups.

A louder message, with a clear values contrast between affirmative solutions for safety versus a “tough-on-crime” approach, could have helped Harris and Democrats overall create a big tent of support by holding the Democratic voter base, increasing support among swing state and independent voters, and building greater margins with urban and suburban voters.

Messaging effectively on crime requires a better understanding around the nuances of how safety matters to voters. Even though crime does not rank as a top-tier issue in the polls, voters in the United States remain concerned about it. Despite violent crime continuing to decline in 2024, more than half of Americans say crime is “extremely” or “very” serious, according to both Gallup and Vera Action’s exit poll. A recent nationwide YouGov survey from September 2024 found that crime was the fourth most important issue to vote choice—behind the economy, health care, and immigration, but above the environment, social issues, education, and foreign policy. 

Our exit polling found that political affiliation and geography played a big role in how voters viewed the seriousness of crime as a problem. Nearly all Republican voters said crime is a very or somewhat serious problem in the country—23 points more than Democrats and 16 points above independent voters. By geographical area, rural voters were the most likely to say crime is a very serious or somewhat serious problem in the country, despite being significantly less likely than urban voters to say crime is a very or somewhat serious problem where they live. 

This phenomenon—of voters viewing feeling safe where they live but believing crime is a problem nationally—is most potent in rural America, where conservative TV and talk radio outlets pump out stories about crime in big cities. However, voters across the board share this sentiment.

In one of the most surprising findings, voters in Vera Action’s exit poll ranked homelessness and open air drug use as their overall top crime concern, just above opioids and fentanyl abuse. These findings are especially concerning with the increased criminalization of homelessness and drug use—as in California’s Prop 36 or the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass decision—and speak to the need for politicians to focus more on quality-of-life concerns.

Significantly fewer voters said “migrant crime” was of significant concern—despite the relentless focus on it during the election. Democrats at the presidential, congressional, and local level spent comparatively little on ads or messaging about real solutions to address increased homelessness and overdose deaths. This underscores that candidates cannot assuage voters’ safety concerns or feelings that the “country is on the wrong track” by talking only about violent crime and neglecting concerns about housing, opioids, fentanyl, and drugs.

Unlike most candidates, Baldwin did make safety a central feature in her campaign. Facing a well-funded GOP opponent, she took a balanced approach on combating fentanyl. Wisconsin polling shows that drugs and drug overdoses are a leading crime concern in the state. Eric Hovde, the Republican challenger, used fearmongering rhetoric to connect this everyday issue to the broader specter of immigration, talking in soundbites about shutting down the border. Baldwin, however, emphasized her personal connection to the issue and talked about the work her office has done to prevent overdoses and make naloxone widely accessible. Rather than letting Hovde dictate the issue and following him into a largely unrelated hotbutton issue as many candidates did during this cycle, Baldwin demonstrated that voters want real solutions to address their concerns, not empty rhetoric or evasion.

Vera Action’s exit poll found that despite the rightward lean of the electorate this cycle, voters still believe criminal justice reform policies are effective. When it comes to safety, they far prefer policies like increasing access to mental health care, programs that break the cycle of crime, more accountable policing, and alternatives to 911 over “tough” policies like putting 100,000 more police on the streets or making prison sentences longer.

The polls from FWD.us and REFORM Alliance similarly find that voters have more—not less—support for candidates who embrace criminal justice reform.

Winning the next cycle of elections, and winning back momentum for criminal justice reform, must begin with a clear vision for what voters want: safe and thriving communities for everyone, where all people can have a stable and secure future. Even when the main issue is the economy, the underlying desire is stability—in which less crime and more safety plays a critical role. Undoubtedly, strong support persists for more accountability and justice too. 

If we look past the early hot takes and pay attention to the data, the path forward is clear. It is on candidates and elected leaders to lean into the popular values of safety, accountability, and justice instead of ceding ground to “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and policies.