One message in campaign ads from Republican candidates and their allies ahead of the Nov. 8 elections is this: America is a dangerous place. Democrats made it that way. Ads in governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House races aim to trigger fear.
on Sept. 26, citing data from AdImpact, a subscription service, that in the previous two weeks, Republican candidates and groups spent more than $21 million on ads about crime — more than on any other policy issue — and Democrats spent nearly $17 million. the record rates of the early 1990s, several categories of violent crime have seen significant increases since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Candace McCoy, a criminology professor at City University of New York, said the COVID-19 pandemic helped spur increases in violent crime as people recovered from isolation, the loss of loved ones and other residual effects. Max Kapustin, a Cornell University economics and public policy professor who is affiliated with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, referenced theof George Floyd at the hands of police and said it’s not uncommon to see spikes of violence after incidents of police violence.