Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses issues such as crime. In the 2020 congressional elections, Republicans gained seats because some prominent progressives talked about "defunding the police."
Eric Adams had a substantial lead in the first round of the NYC Democratic mayoral primary. Mike Allen at Axios:
The latest: Democrats say it's no coincidence that Eric Adams, the leader in the New York City mayoral race, ran against defunding the police.The big picture: Homicide rates in large cities — many of them run by Democrats — were "up more than 30 percent on average last year, and up another 24 percent for the beginning of this year," foreshadowing a violent summer, the N.Y. Times reported June 1.
- Adams, who retired as an NYPD captain after a 22-year law-enforcement career, held a lead in yesterday's Democratic mayoral primary. Final results could take weeks because of the election's complex ranked-choice voting. Andrew Yang conceded.
The N.Y. Times' Tom Friedman, one of Biden's favorite columnists, writes today under the headline "Want to Get Trump Re-elected? Dismantle the Police":
- President Biden sees this rising threat, and plans to roll out anti-crime plans at 3:30 p.m. ET today. (See next item).
What's next: Republicans plan to use Dems' defund-the-police rhetoric as a major issue in next year's midterms.
- "As for policing, this issue could really sink Democrats. For example, big swaths of my old hometown, Minneapolis, have been turned into a dangerous and dystopian ghost city, wracked by gun violence, since the police murder of George Floyd."
