Crime and immigration should top the Democrats’ new domestic strategy

Given President Joe Biden’s sagging poll numbers and stalled domestic agenda, it’s clear that the approach taken by national Democrats during the first year of Biden’s presidency was both misguided and ineffective.   

Just 39 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, while 54 percent disapprove, according to a Monmouth University poll. Republicans also lead in the generic congressional vote by 7-points when leaners — those who initially are undecided but lean toward one party — are factored in. In the matchup without leaners, Republicans lead by 2-points.  

With just nine months until the midterm elections, Democrats need to redefine their legislative priorities and assume a different approach to governing — one that involves making a meaningful effort to work with Republicans on important issues where compromise is feasible.  

Over the last year, Biden and Democrats have wasted too much time wrangling members of their own party — unsuccessfully, I might add — to pass progressive policies that the public either views as secondary priorities, or in some cases, outright opposes.  

Indeed, the same poll shows only 1-in-4 Americans (24 percent), including less than one-half of Democrats (44 percent), say that enacting Biden’s Build Back Better agenda — a mammoth piece of progressive legislation that was much-debated but ultimately failed — should be a top priority.   

This year, Democrats should dedicate their focus to crafting, promoting and passing viable centrist legislation that is designed to address voters’ specific concerns and improve Americans’ quality of life. 

To that end, there are two broader reforms that Democrats can pursue — both of which give them a chance to deliver in a bipartisan fashion, while also inoculating against Republican attacks in the midterms: criminal justice and immigration. 

Similar to infrastructure modernization — which passed last year on a truly bipartisan basis — reforming the criminal justice system and improving immigration laws are two goals that have eluded presidents from both parties for decades.   

As crime rates surge across the country, Democrats have an opportunity to pursue a grand bargain with Republicans on criminal justice legislation. This would involve funding and strengthening local law enforcement, while also making the criminal justice system fairer for Black Americans, who are disproportionately victims of police misconduct and are mistreated under the current system. 

Beyond the necessity and practicality of such reforms, by prioritizing crime reduction, national Democrats can shield electorally vulnerable members of their party against G.O.P. attacks linking Democratic policies to rising crime rates.  

Absent action by national Democrats on crime and public safety, we can reasonably anticipate that Republican criticisms of Democrats as being soft-on-crime will resonate in the midterms — given that 70 percent of registered voters believe crime in the country is out of control, while only 30 percent say crime is mostly under control, per the January Harvard CAPS/Harris poll.  

In order to sell this legislation to Democrats in particular — many of whom are wary of policies that bolster police departments — Biden needs to make explicitly clear that ensuring more equitable treatment of Black Americans and supporting police are not mutually exclusive goals. 

High rates of crime, especially in major cities, pose a serious threat to all Americans, and to Black Americans in particular. In 2020, 65 percent of murder or non-negligent manslaughter victims in New York City were Black; yet, Black New Yorkers only comprised 20 percent of the city’s population.  

I largely agree with other prominent Democrats who have said that New York City Mayor Eric Adams offers Biden and Democrats a template for connecting with voters in the middle who are concerned both about crime and curbing police misconduct.   

Positively, on Thursday, Biden met with Mayor Adams for a public safety and policing summit. The meeting occurred just hours after Biden’s Justice Department announced new measures aimed at supporting local law enforcement and restricting the flow of firearms used to commit crimes. 

“The answer is not to defund the police,” Biden said. “It’s to give you the tools, the training, the funding to be partners, to be protectors.”  

To be sure, Biden’s latest directives and rhetoric are encouraging. However, they are just a first step, and Democrats need to pursue permanent changes to the system.  

Immigration is another key area that Democrats can double-down on this year. Given the crisis in our country — both at the border and in terms of the status of millions of hardworking undocumented immigrants — Democrats can work toward a compromise with Republicans on immigration reform.  

Over the last year, Americans have read and heard about illegal border crossings reaching record-high numbers and ICE detention centers overflowing. Republicans have worked — with some success — to tie the crisis at the border to the Biden administration’s failed policies.  

At the same time, immigration activists on the left have criticized Biden for not making a more meaningful effort to keep the promises he made during the campaign: providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and permanently protecting Dreamers.   

Democrats can and should work with Republicans on crafting balanced and targeted immigration legislation that involves securing the border through both technological and physical barriers, codifying permanent protections for Dreamers, and creating a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.  

Similar to criminal justice, Democrats stagnating on immigration not only fails on a promise to their base but leaves the issue open to attack from Republicans, given the metastasizing crisis at the border.  

While I’ve only identified two reforms, there are a number of others that national Democrats can and should pursue on a bipartisan basis: targeted tax breaks for job creation, expansion of educational choice, and a sincere commitment to fiscal discipline and prudence that involves ruling out any tax increases or new spending initiatives without broad bipartisan support.  

Ultimately, if Democrats do not embrace this strategic shift and make a meaningful effort to work with Republicans on issues, they risk historic defeats — worse than 1994 or 2010 — in this year’s midterm elections.  

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to former President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”