Most Americans incorrectly believe crime is on the rise nationally, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds, although few are seriously concerned about crime in their own communities. As they did in 2016, Americans’ false perceptions of crime rates stand to potentially benefit President Donald Trump, who has stoked fears about crime in cities and promised to protect mostly white suburbs from demographic groups he claims will bring in crime. At the same time, however, concerns about crime have ticked down since the last election, and most voters’ attention remains on other issues.

Over the past month, the Trump campaign has flooded the airwaves with ads mentioning crime ― between July 1 and July 26, 85% of the president’s ads dealt in some way with the topic of public safety, while none focused on the current coronavirus pandemic.

Forty-four percent of Americans say they believe crime is a very serious problem nationally, down from 53% who shared this belief in an August 2016 survey, when then-candidate Trump was also campaigning on […]