THE DIFFERENCE WITH WASHINGTON. Now that Washington, D.C. — the city, not the federal enclave — is in the news because of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on local crime, the Washington Post has conducted a survey to see what city residents think about that and other issues. If the poll is accurate, here are three notable facts about public opinion in the District of Columbia:
1) D.C. residents don’t worry much about the high cost of living.
2) Far fewer say crime is a serious problem today than just a few months ago.
3) They believe Trump is a bigger problem for the city than crime.
Before discussing these points, it’s important to note that the District of Columbia is basically a slightly larger-than-midsized city inside a large metropolitan area. The district’s estimated population in 2024 was 702,250, the 22nd-largest in the country, which made it slightly smaller than Nashville and slightly larger than El Paso. But the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia metro area is the seventh-largest in the country, just behind Miami and just ahead of Atlanta.
Of course, many cities have liberal politics, and in the case of the district, the city has intensely liberal politics. The new Washington Post poll shows just how distant life in the district can be from the rest of the country.
For example, the high cost of living devastated many American families when it peaked in 2022 and remained a serious problem in 2023, 2024, and into today. Polls consistently found it the public’s top concern. A Gallup national poll in April of this year found that 29% of respondents said that “inflation or the high cost of living is the most important financial problem facing their family today.”
In the District of Columbia poll, in response to a similar question, the number is … 2%. Just 2% named the high cost of living as their most serious problem. Indeed, the Washington Post found that many D.C. residents appear to suffer from far fewer economic anxieties than the rest of the country.
For example, the Census Bureau found that the median household income in the District of Columbia is $108,210, compared to $77,719 for the nation. In the district, the median household income for married-couple families is $239,178, while nationally that number is $113,728. Many people in the District of Columbia are more comfortable than the rest of the country. It’s no wonder they are less worried about the cost of living than others.
On the issue of crime, the Washington Post poll has an eye-catching finding. The question was: “Overall, how would you describe the problem of crime in Washington, DC — is it extremely serious, very serious, moderately serious, not too serious, or not serious at all?” When the question was asked in May of this year, 50% said crime was an extremely or very serious problem. Now, in the new poll, just 31% say that — a striking drop in just a few months.
What accounts for that? Has the Trump anti-crime effort suddenly made fewer D.C. residents feel crime is a big problem? Possibly. But it seems more likely than an anti-Trump effect is at work here. If Trump says crime is a huge problem in the district, many residents will reflexively claim it is not a big problem, even if they know otherwise. So now that Trump is emphasizing the seriousness of the D.C. crime problem, many residents are de-emphasizing it. That accounts for the precipitous drop in poll respondents saying crime is an extremely or very serious problem.
Finally, there is the answer to this question: “In your own words, what is the biggest problem facing the district today, the one you want the mayor to work the hardest to solve?” At the top of the list, with 24%, the city’s most important problem was, in the Washington Post’s words, “Trump/issues involving Trump/Trump takeover of DC police/National Guard, federal agents patrolling DC/federal overreach.” The second-biggest problem facing the district today, poll respondents said, was “crime/violence/guns.”
So there it is. For a plurality of Washington, D.C., residents, Trump is a bigger problem than crime. Just for the record, in 2024, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, there were 274 murders, 1,412 assaults with a dangerous weapon, 3,468 robberies, 6,809 motor vehicle thefts, and 13,314 other thefts in the District of Columbia.
By the way, the fact that poll respondents listed crime as the city’s number-two problem suggests that, no matter what they might claim in response to Trump’s rhetoric, they really do know that crime is a serious problem in the city. But the fact that they say Trump is a bigger problem than crime could indicate the fundamentally political way in which a significant number of D.C. residents view their world.
Contrary to the popular image, Washington is bigger than just the government. Like other cities, it has its local obsessions and people who live lives with little interest in the workings of government. On the other hand, for obvious reasons, it has a particularly large population of people who are creatures of government and for whom political issues are life-defining.
Many of those people are also doing quite well, with high educational levels and incomes compared to the rest of the nation. They are not as involved in the struggles of everyday life as those who have a hard time making ends meet. And these days, many well-educated, high-income Washingtonians are fixated on President Donald Trump. They have focused so intently on Trump and have magnified his place in their lives so dramatically that they see him as a more serious threat than murder. In light of that, is it any wonder that many Americans view the nation’s capital as a place far different from their hometown?
