WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's recent focus on crime in Washington and other big cities came as views of his handling of immigration — the early focus of his second term — soured, a new Associated Press analysis shows.
Trump's approach to crime is now a clear strength for him, according to a new poll from The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It found about half of U.S. adults, 53%, approve of his approach — higher than support his handling of immigration, the economy or the Russia-Ukraine war.
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That's despite outcry from Washington residents and Democratic leaders over his takeover of the city's police department and his deployment of the National Guard and the fact that violent crime is down both in Washington and across the nation following a COVID-19 pandemic spike.
Trump's tough-on-crime shift happened alongside a small boost in his overall approval rating. Just under half, 45%, of Americans now approve of his performance as president, up from 40% in July.
President Donald Trump speaks with members of law enforcement and National Guard soldiers Aug. 21 in Washington, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Attorney General Pam Bondi listen.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
Crime traditionally was one of Republicans' stronger issues, "so it's not a real surprise that he has pushed that to the top of the agenda and that people favor him," said veteran Republican pollster Whit Ayres.
The AP-NORC poll found crime in large cities is a "major" concern for 81% of U.S. adults as the topic became a top story in both conservative and mainstream news outlets.
"He's elevated it as an issue," Ayres said. "And if you're in the White House you'd much rather be talking about crime than tariffs or inflation or a stalemate in Ukraine or than Jeffrey Epstein."
Armed members of the South Carolina National Guard patrol Lafayette Park on Tuesday by the White House in downtown Washington.
Public appears to sours on Trump's immigration push
It was clear early in Trump's second term that immigration was one of his strengths.
In March, an AP-NORC poll found about half of U.S. adults approved of his handling immigration — putting it above other key issues.
That advantage disappeared by the summer, when a July AP-NORC poll found only 43% of U.S. adults approved of his approach. Other polls found the same, suggesting Americans soured on his aggressive action amid headlines about college students whisked off city streets by masked federal agents and men who were alleged to be gang members wrongly sent to a notorious Salvadorian prison with no due process.
A July CNN/SSRS poll found 55% of Americans said Trump went too far on deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, up 10 points in February.
In the latest AP-NORC poll, Trump's standing on immigration remains underwater, as does his handling of the economy, which rose slightly, from 38% in July to 43% now. Both of those issues are now dwarfed by his advantage on crime — including among key groups like independents.
Members of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Police and the Louisiana National Guard patrol Union Station on Thursday in Washington.
Trump's pivot to crime
While Trump long threatened a federal takeover of Washington, which has limited autonomy because it is not a state, his focus on the city came after a group of teenagers attempted a carjacking and beating of a prominent member of the Department of Government Efficiency was the victim of an attempted carjacking and beating.
Days later, the president posted photos of homeless encampments and garbage strewn across city streets after a Sunday morning motorcade ride to his Sterling, Virginia, golf course and announced he would hold a news conference the next day to unveil his takeover plans.
Trump's takeover of the city's police department and his activation of the National Guard wasn't his first such action. In early June, he ordered the deployment of about 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines to respond to protests against immigration raids in and around Los Angeles.
During the 2020 campaign, Trump activated federal agents to fight crime in Chicago and Albuquerque and warned suburbanites of rising crime as he struggled with a flagging approval rating.
A U.S. Park Police officer talks to a driver during an Aug 22 traffic stop outside the Washington Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Washington.
Overall approval remains steady
Trump's presidential approval numbers remained within a relatively narrow band during his first term, according to AP-NORC polling, a pattern that's persisted so far in his second. Even when he was out of office, his favorability rating remained remarkably stable.
Tim Roemer, 59, a lifelong Democrat who lives in Utica, New York, is opposed to the president's efforts to take over city police departments and Trump's use of the National Guard, given that crime numbers are down across the nation.
He said it seemed Trump seized on an issue and took credit for improvements to help himself politically.
"I think he's trying to keep his numbers up because he knows the 2026 midterms are coming up and he knows it's going to hurt him if his numbers are down," he said. "He knows how to win people over, unfortunately."
Trump has not abandoned his unprecedented focus on immigration.
As part of the Washington takeover, federal authorities set up checkpoints across the city, where they asked people about their immigration status and detained them. Of the 1,170 people arrested since the takeover began, at least 319 were related to immigration issues, the White House said.
