A new national poll suggests that a significant majority of the U.S. population would prefer to live in a state governed by policies more commonly advocated by Republican leaders than Democratic ones.
Conducted by Harvard’s Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) and Harris Insights and Analytics, roughly 2,100 registered voters from around the country were posed the following question between June 14 and 15:
“Would you want to live or not live in a state that had legislation to cut taxes, encourage public charter schools, not allow gender surgery for kids under 18, and restricted most abortions after six weeks?”
Some 1,346 respondents answered in the affirmative, comprising a substantial 64% majority of the individuals polled. In contrast, 744 people said they would not want to live in such a state.
Respondents were also presented with a similar question to gauge support for the political opposite:
“Would you want to live or not live in a state with increasing taxes, that allowed minors to get gender surgery without parental permission, that encouraged undocumented immigrants, that allowed abortions up to 9 months, had more restrictions on legal gun ownership and allowed felons to vote?”
Of the 2,090 individuals polled, only 716 (34%) respondents said they would want to live in such a state. The remaining 1,374 said they would not.
The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll appears to track with other studies that found some correlation between certain negative aspects of city life and local political control by the Democratic Party.
One study used quality-of-life factors — like air quality, share of overcrowded homes, landfill tonnage, and share of residents unsatisfied with garbage collection — to rank U.S. cities by cleanliness. The results of the study, as previously reported by The Dallas Express, indicated that the top five had Democratic mayors.
High crime rates have been associated with Democratic dominance in local government, as The Dallas Express has covered.
In Dallas, for instance — where the local police department is short about 500 officers — violent crime has increased by 84% since 2014, with murders jumping by roughly 23% year over year in the first four months of 2023.
Crime has been especially bad in Downtown Dallas, which lacks specialized, dedicated tactical units or private security forces like those deployed in Downtown Fort Worth or Deep Ellum.
An ABC 7 report claimed that 11 of the 15 cities with the highest murder rates so far in 2023 are run by Democrats.
“Democrats’ soft-on-crime and no-bail policies have led to some of the worst crime waves this country has ever seen,” said Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi in a previous statement to The Dallas Express.
However, the Brennan Center disputes any causation, instead citing equal crime rises in Republican-run cities and suggesting socioeconomic instability as an alternative explanation.
