The majority of D.C. residents said they are concerned about President Donald Trump’s threats to take over the District, according to a new poll.
At the same time, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s approval rating has gone up, and residents said they’re less worried about crime than they were last year.
Those are just some of the results of the recently released poll from The Washington Post and George Mason University. The poll was conducted April 22 through May 4 and has a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.
Drilling down to specific issues — like handling homelessness, crime and education — the numbers show Bowser has some work to do. But in terms of the broader questions on how residents feel about her performance overall, the numbers are good for her.
Crime concerns
One of the biggest issues Bowser has faced as mayor the past 10 years is crime, and the poll showed that it’s the number one concern for District residents.
But when asked how safe they feel in their neighborhood, 76% of residents polled told The Washington Post they feel very or somewhat safe. That’s up 16% from one year ago.
“I sent a note to our public safety teams saying thank you for staying the course,” Bowser told News4 in response to that number. “It’s important to note, because I know a lot of people refer to old data or some tough crime situations that we’ve seen in the city, and so it’s important that people know that the city is safer, our police officers and community are working together, our prosecutors are working together, and it’s important, however, that we don’t go backwards.”
Bowser’s approval
For how residents feel about the mayor, 53% of District residents asked by The Washington Post said they either strongly or somewhat approve while 41% disapprove.
Her approval is up seven points from last year. It’s still far from her peak 67% approval rating six years ago, but it’s still considered a strong approval number.
Trump’s impact on DC
Bowser has been candid about not wanting to pick a public fight with the president and being diplomatic in her approach. On that strategy, residents seem evenly split
Forty-seven percent of residents polled want the mayor to take a more aggressive posture opposing the president while 40% think she’s striking the right balance.
As for those threats by the president, he said several weeks ago on Air Force One, “I think we should take over Washington, D.C., make it safe.”
Ed Martin, the current U.S. attorney for D.C. said Tuesday about home rule, “There needs to be a robust discussion now about D.C.’s sanctuary city status and its justice system and its judges, and if that means that home rule is on the table to go away, well then so be it.”
Comments like those have 77% of District residents feeling extremely or very concerned about Trump’s impact on D.C.
“What I tell them is, we’re doing our level best to push back. I think we’ve pushed back on a lot of intrusions into our autonomy, and we’re going to keep doing that,” Bowser said. “But we’re also focused on our growth agenda and how we can enlist the federal government to be our partner in growing the economy, in pausing some of these layoffs or headquarter moves, and so we’re working on all of those things, and so we take the charge very seriously to change the trajectory that has been projected for the next four years.”
Regionally, the majority of D.C., Maryland and Virginia residents say they are either scared or angry about the Trump administration, and more than 20% of DMV residents say they are seriously considering moving out of the area due to the federal job cuts.
Overall, about 26% of households in the DMV have had someone laid off due to the federal cuts, and more than 40% of those families said they have had trouble paying all their bills on time.
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/K5gCuNd
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