President Trump’s decision to take over law enforcement in Washington, D.C. and deploy the National Guard and other federal agents to combat crime is, to put it mildly, a gross misuse of federal resources. It is gimmicky. As a policy, it would never pass a cost-benefit analysis.

Yet, it is also something Democrats — particularly those looking ahead to 2028 — should find a way to emulate.

Trump has correctly assessed that voters take crime very seriously. According to Blue Rose Research, crime was more important to voters in 2024 than immigration, housing, Social Security, abortion, climate change and almost every other issue besides the economy, health care, and national security.

What’s more, voters said they trusted Republicans to handle the problem of crime more than they trusted Democrats by a wider margin than most other issues.

Washington, D.C. also isn’t just any city — it is the nation’s capital, and a major tourism hub. More than 27 million people visited D.C. in 2024. High-profile crimes, like the attack on the DOGE staffer that initiated Trump's move, reverberate in other parts of the country.

© The Hill