Political Bias Skews Peoples' Views on Crime in Big Cities

A recent Gallup Poll shows personal opinions regarding safety in large U.S. cities are heavily influenced by political affiliation. For example, 64% percent of respondents who leaned Democrat said Los Angeles is a relatively safe city. Only 21% of Republican-leaning respondents agreed. Each side would also deem cities run primarily by their party preference as safer than cities that aren't. Many Republican respondents said New York is more dangerous than New Orleans when stats show the opposite. The same applies to Democrat respondents who said Washington D.C. is safer than a city like Miami when that isn't the case.

Democrats and Republicans disagreed on whether a city is safe or not by an average difference of 29%. 16 cities were used in the poll including, Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Las Vegas, Miami, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, San Francisco, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Detroit.