A safer Chicago wouldn’t just benefit residents. It could also help Democrats nationally.

JD Vance takes a cheap shot at Chicago during the Democratic National Convention. Source: Fox News

Note from Conor: In some exciting news for A City That Works, today's post was authored by Richard Day. Richard has written previously about housing and transit policy at Streetsblog along with op-eds in the Sun-Times, Tribune, and Crain’s. He’s also spent time working in the Mayor’s Office, and on Democratic political campaigns. We share a passion and interest in fostering more growth and better governance in Chicago, and I'm excited to have him as a contributor going forward! 

As Democrats gathered last week for a successful, feel-good convention in Chicago, Republican Vice-Presidential nominee JD Vance trotted out a new attack line on his Democratic counterpart, Tim Walz. It sounded all too familiar to many Chicagoans:

“My little theory about why they decided to have the convention in Chicago is, you know, Tim Walz has been going around saying that he served in war, and maybe they did it in Chicago, so that he could accurately say that he visited a combat zone.”

We’ve heard some version of this before, and you likely have your own response ready.[1] But it’s worth taking a longer view. Chicago does have a serious violence problem, but our reputation is a lot worse than reality. That reputation translates into fewer opportunities and resources for Chicagoans. It’s also a powerful talking point for Republicans like Vance, who have skillfully used Chicago as a weapon to hurt Democrats nationally.

Fortunately, these perceptions aren’t set in stone. Americans used to have a much more positive view of Chicago, and doing the hard work to address our safety challenges would change the narrative. That wouldn’t just be a good for Chicago: it could also make a meaningful difference for Democrats up and down the ticket.

Violence in Chicago: Perception, reality and politics

Right now, the picture is pretty grim. Only 27% of Americans think Chicago is safe city to live in or visit – second to last among the 17 cities listed by Gallup.[2] Of course, views on public safety are influenced by a mix of partisanship, prejudice, and reality. Helpfully, Gallup breaks out the data by partisanship. I’ve added in some data Justin Fox built out for an excellent Bloomberg piece last year: homicide rates per 100,000 residents across the 50 largest cities.

In general, Republicans are generally more suspicious of big cities. And they seem to be more favorable to cities in red states— Republicans seem to think Dallas is the safest city in the country, even though in reality it’s middle of the pack.[3] But there is some connection between perception and reality: the homicide rate in the five cities perceived as safest (12.7 homicides/100K) is just over half the rate of the five worst scoring cities Gallup asked about (24.6 homicides/100K).

It's clear that Chicago gets a raw deal. Most Americans would be surprised to know that it’s safer here than New Orleans, DC, Philly or Atlanta. Republicans seem to think Chicago (25.9 homicides/100K) is a violence-ridden hellhole, but Las Vegas (23 homicides/100K), is one of the safest cities in the country. And in the larger dataset that Fox compiled of the top 50 cities, many of which don’t make the Gallup list, Chicago has the tenth highest murder rate – marginally above Indianapolis, and lower than Memphis, Kansas City, and Milwaukee. You read that last one right: Chicago happens to be much safer than the host city for the RNC (37.6 homicides/100K). JD Vance took a bigger ‘risk’ at the RNC than Tim Walz did at the DNC.

I’m grateful that city leaders pushed back forcefully on the Gallup results when they came out, and I’m hopeful that the well-managed DNC can help correct some screwed up assumptions. These perceptions don’t hurt our city as much as the direct cost of gun violence to individuals, families, and communities, but they still matter. When a large share of the country views Chicago as unsafe, we end up with fewer people willing to move here (and help cover our pension tab), fewer tourists paying taxes downtown, and fewer businesses willing to consider Chicago as a place to invest or hire.  

A political punching bag

This poor reputation also hands JD Vance a winning issue. Drawing attention to the violence here simultaneously raises the salience of crime in the election and makes an argument to voters that Democrats can’t be trusted to keep them safe. Plus, 73% of the country is already inclined to believe him.  

Chicago occupies a special place in the GOP messaging strategy. Because of our large size, we have the highest total number of murders—an easy talking point, and steady source of lurid stories. We’re close to a number of swing states, but not a swing state ourselves, so it’s easy to take shots at us without insulting voters who matter – a lesson Trump learned when he got in hot water for trashing Milwaukee. And because we’re a blue state, there are an ample supply of Democrats to blame in every direction.  

So Republicans keep going back to the well. Since 2019, Chicago was mentioned on at least 3,159 separate Fox News programs. A regular Fox viewer can expect to hear about Chicago more than once a day. That’s three times more often than similarly sized Houston (920 mentions), and more than Los Angeles (2,470 mentions), a city that happens to be almost 50% larger. Note that these numbers are an undercount – I wasn’t able to access transcripts for the full lineup of shows (Fox & Friends in particular is missing).[4]

This strategy works. When presented with a range of issues, voters tell Navigator Research that crime is the issue they trust Democrats the least on. Chicago is the GOP’s best talking point, on their single strongest issue in this election.[5]

Reality gets a vote

At this point, it can feel like there’s no way out: we’re graded on a harsher curve than other cities, and subject to a steady barrage of conservative attacks. But changes in Chicago’s reputation aren’t driven by Fox News – they’re driven by results on the ground. Gallup has been asking about city safety since the early 1990s. Back then, violence was worse than today, and just over 20% of respondents said that Chicago was a safe place to live or work. But then, our homicide rate started to fall – from 30.5/100K in 1990 to 15.9/100K in 2004. And perceptions of Chicago got dramatically better – doubling from 26% in 1990, to 53% in 2004. Then things got worse again. In 2023, our homicide rate was back up to 23.2/100K, and perceptions safety crashed back down to 27%.

I’m sure right-wing attacks will always have an impact at the margin. But at least half the country seems quite responsive to reality.

We see this on other issues too. The second-best issue for Democrats in the Navigator polling is healthcare. Much of the debate over the Affordable Care Act was a fact-free screaming match—Nancy Pelosi famously remarked that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.” But it turns out that eventually voters liked what they saw. Research by Amy Lerman and Sam Trachtman found that political independents, and voters who shopped on the exchanges were particularly good at making accurate assessments about the law, and accurately ascribing credit and blame to elected officials as a result. As the law’s provisions kicked in and we got farther away from the fights over passage, support has steadily ticked up. Defending the ACA has been a powerful argument for Democrats in this election cycle, and Republicans are now abandoning their attacks on the bill.

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Tracking Poll, 5/15/24

At least on the big, visible issues, politics is downstream of outcomes. In Chicago, progress on the ground would translate into a better reputation for the city. And that would help to set off a much more positive cycle: with more people looking to live and visit, we’d have a stronger tax base, and more job opportunities. That in turn would mean more resources to help build safer communities.

And if that’s not enough, we could make it easier for Democrats to win races across the county in the process.  It’s easy to think that Chicago doesn’t get a vote in national politics -- that Democrats here are limited to writing checks or heading up to Wisconsin to knock doors. But even if our votes don’t count for much, the results here matter.

The Bottom Line

• Republicans have effectively seized on the City’s challenges and use them as a weapon to hurt Democrats nationally.

• Chicago gets an unfair rap in the national media, but people do pay attention to outcomes over the long run.

• Delivering better governance, and especially safer streets, would undercut a key Republican talking point on their single strongest issue—helping Democrats up and down the ticket.

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[1] Mine: Chicago’s murder rate is a serious problem, but it’s lower than a number of peer cities like Atlanta, DC and Philly; murders are generally higher in big cities but Republicans don’t run any of them so there’s no good point of comparison; Chicago is a victim of loose gun laws across the border in Indiana; and the roots of our violence stem from segregation, disinvestment, and a breakdown of trust between communities and police – all of which a Trump/Vance administration would make worse.  

[2] Gallup is one of the starkest data points here, but it’s not the only one: In 2023, a Harris poll found that less than half of Cook County residents felt safe spending time downtown.

[3] Another note: Boston and Seattle are perceived as much safer than New York and LA, even though they’re all cities in blue states with similar murder rates. That may be due to high rates of violence in New York and LA in the recent past… or it may be because Boston and Seattle have much smaller Black and Latino populations.

[4] New York is excluded because most of Fox’s lineup is shot and broadcast from there, which means it gets a passing mention in a disproportionate share of transcripts.

[5] Still not convinced? Take a look at Democrats’ most compelling issue on the chart: Abortion. Reproductive rights have always mattered, but the Dobbs took them from the realm of the theoretical to the real – with state after state putting bans in place that mobilized voters nationally. Democrats use local examples to make their case here—most recently highlighting the Alabama Supreme Court decision to restrict access to IVF.