Crime a focal point in U.S. Senate race between Fetterman, Oz

Ads in Pennsylvania’s combative U.S. Senate race have made crime a focal point in the campaign, and experts say Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz are using the ads to stoke fear in voters.

“John Fetterman wants to release convicted murderers from prison,” one ad blares, showing black-and-white mugshots of Fetterman next to a picture of a person serving a life sentence.

“Doc Oz in his Gucci loafers is attacking me on crime? Dr. Oz wouldn’t last two hours here in Braddock,” Fetterman counters in another one.

Oz has challenged Fetterman’s positions on a variety of criminal justice issues, including his support for eliminating the mandatory sentence of life in prison for second-degree murder and for hiring brothers Lee and Dennis Horton to work on his campaign. The Hortons served 27 years for second-degree murder, but were freed after Gov. Tom Wolf commuted their sentences.

Fetterman has countered by touting his work as Braddock’s mayor to stop gun violence and advocating for the early release of some prisoners serving lengthy sentences in prison.

“The exploitation of crime by politicians is a long-standing practice,” said David A. Love, who teaches journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. “A lot of politicians have benefited from that exploitation. They have built their careers and reputations on it.”

University of Pittsburgh law professor David A. Harris said many politicians use the fear of crime to keep themselves popular.

“The message is very much the same: ‘You should be afraid,’” Harris said.

Crime a ‘top-tier issue’ for voters

A Muhlenberg College poll conducted last month said just 3% of Pennsylvania’s likely voters identified crime as their most important issue. Economy topped the list with 22%, followed by abortion at 20% and inflation at 12%, the poll said.

Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said the polling results need to be taken in context.

He said the poll didn’t ask likely voters to rank the issues, but instead asked them to identify their top concern.

“Crime is not the biggest factor. But certainly it could be … a top-tier issue that is part of your political calculus as you make your choice” based on where you live and your age, Borick said.

Crime might be a more important issue for older voters and those living in communities impacted by violent crime, he said. In Philadelphia and the surrounding area, stories about the number of people being shot and killed are regular fixtures on the nightly news, he said.

“For older voters, it’s probably a good place to emphasize if you’re Oz,” he said. “I think it’s paid off and helped him narrow the gap.”

Borick said that polling data shows a specific, linear decline in support for Fetterman as likely voters get older. The September poll showed that support for Fetterman dropped off in each advancing age category, with a high of 56% among voters aged 18 to 34 to about 40% among those aged 65 and older.

“His brand for older folks is not a natural fit,” Borick said.

Appealing to undecided voters

Oz is trying to capitalize on that by running ads accusing Fetterman of being soft on crime, Borick said.

But Fetterman, who as lieutenant governor chairs the Board of Pardons, disputes those claims and points to his record there.

“I took a fair-minded approach to cases, voting to give second chances to the wrongfully convicted and deserving, but also voting to deny hundreds of applications where I felt clemency wasn’t merited,” he said.

According to FactCheck.org at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, Fetterman voted with the board’s corrections expert 69% of the time.

Answering questions for the Trib last week, Fetterman wondered why Oz had not yet released a plan on crime.

“Dr. Oz and his team are engaging in gross fear-mongering because he has no plan, no solutions, and no record when it comes to taking on crime,” Fetterman said.

On Monday, Oz’s campaign released a three-page “fighting crime agenda.” It did not respond to specific questions from the Trib.

Among Oz’s priority issues, he listed stopping drug crimes, sentencing reform, increased resources for safer streets, additional resources for crime victims and reducing crime in prisons.

The agenda suggests moving fentanyl to the list of Schedule I controlled substances — like heroin — and designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations. Oz also suggests that cash bail should remain an option for violent offenders and that there should be an increased penalty for carjacking, which, he said, has doubled in Philadelphia since last year.

Oz also said he believes in increased penalties for those illegally possessing firearms.

Throughout the campaign, Love said Oz has not talked about many specific criminal justice issues.

“You can have a good-faith conversation about crime, but with this wholesale painting of candidates as soft on crime, it’s being done as a wedge issue,” Love said. “There is not a good-faith effort to look at crime.”

If there were, Love said, other issues such as the rise of white supremacy, the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and mass shootings would also be getting discussed.

“It seems to be a selective look at criminal justice,” he said. “Rather than look at new solutions — new programs, reallocating funding — it’s just fanning the flames and playing into hysteria.”

Oz’s ads — with grainy, black and white imagery, and ominous music — are straight out of a political campaign textbook, Borick said.

Campaign ads work by exposing a person’s implicit biases, he said.

“We sometimes try to activate these biases that voters wouldn’t tell you about — and they may not even recognize,” he said.

Oz’s ads could be effective for some, but, Alison Dagnes, a political science professor at Shippensburg University, said they could also be characterized as race-baiting.

“Crime is really just a dog whistle,” Dagnes said. “His pandering to suburban fear is a narrative that is alive and well in right-wing media.”

That narrative, she said, is that “cities are on fire and out of control because of liberal politicians who have become obsessed with being politically correct and being woke — they’re letting criminals get away with murder.’”

Fetterman said his opponent is exploiting crime for political gain.

“He doesn’t care about these communities or the people who live there – he’s just doing it for the cameras,” he said.

Dagnes said she thinks Oz’s efforts have been working.

“When it comes to making policy, Oz comes to the table with no policy bonafides, so he has to hang his hat on a narrative that will be easily understood by [undecided] voters,” she said. “He’s appealing to the movable voters, and the movable voters are concerned about crime.”

Addressing violent crime

Nationally, crime statistics have dropped in most categories, but in larger cities such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, violent crime — and in particular, gun violence — is up, the experts said.

Fetterman said more should be invested into local police departments to give them the resources they need — including additional funding for mental health and social services. But, he added, “not at the expense of having the appropriate amount of police staffing.”

Tough-on-crime policies of the late 1980s and 1990s led to mass incarceration in the United States, with the number of people imprisoned today three times higher than it was then, Harris said. America ranks No. 1 in the world for the number of people locked up, he said.

Those policies, Harris said, don’t deter crime, but they are “being used to scare people into voting for one side or the other.”

Oz has tightened the race, in part, by casting Fetterman as weak on crime and too liberal for Pennsylvania.

The Republican National Committee has gotten in on the action with a website called “Inmates for Fetterman.” It provides links to an array of social media posts and articles about Fetterman’s positions on criminal justice.

On Fetterman’s campaign website, he has a section called “Taking on Crime.”

He said in a video there that one of his proudest achievements as mayor of Braddock, a town of about 1,700 people, was going 5-1/2 years without a death from gun violence.

“As your senator, I will make sure law enforcement has the resources necessary to do their job, but I will also prioritize oversight, accountability and violence prevention,” the website said.

He also addresses mass shootings and the need to end them.

“I’m a gun owner, and I’ve been around guns my whole life. I want what an overwhelming majority of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, want (and that) is common-sense gun safety measures.”

The campaign website also includes a 2-1/2 minute video of Fetterman talking about how violence affected him when he was mayor and his 2013 interaction with a jogger. Fetterman said he saw the jogger running from an area where Fetterman thought he’d heard gunshots. He said he grabbed a shotgun from his truck and held the unarmed man until police arrived.

Love said that Fetterman’s public explanations about that interaction have been lacking and that he could do more.

“If he considers himself an ally on racial justice issues, it gives him more credibility to say, ‘I made a mistake,’” Love said.

Fetterman said he has addressed the topic repeatedly.

“I do think it’s important to acknowledge the history and real harm of racial profiling and over-policing in the Black community – but the people of Braddock know that that’s not what this was,” Fetterman said. “I was reelected mayor by a large margin just a few months after that incident occurred, because the people of Braddock know that every day as mayor, I was acting to keep our community safe – something Dr. Oz would know nothing about.”