* I’ve also heard about this Senate Democratic poll. Here’s Pearson at the Trib…

“The other side is using crime as a bludgeon for the next election,” said a longtime Democrat who was not authorized to speak for the House majority, “and there’s a political reality that people want to address crime.”

The issue provides inroads to swing suburban districts that had once been reliable Republican territory but have changed demographically and ideologically in favor of Democrats in recent years.

But an internal poll conducted for Senate Democrats indicated that crime falls below taxes and other concerns among suburban voters, according to a senator who was not authorized to speak about internal caucus discussions. Only in Chicago was crime a top issue, the legislator said, in part because random gun violence being seen in parts of the city that have long been relatively unscathed by violence.

To counter Republican attacks, Democratic legislators are looking to take up issues in Springfield this spring that include carjacking, smash-and-grab retail theft and ghost guns, which can be manufactured from home kits without serial numbers or other ways to trace them.

There’s also an effort to provide increased funding for state and local police to both attract and retain officers after retirements of police hired with an influx of federal dollars in the mid-1990s.

* From my own conversation with a Democratic Senator…

Some of the negatives that they’re polling are polling like 55 percent. And when you get 55 percent on a negative message, that’s huge. […]

As soon as you cross into the suburbs [from the city], [crime] goes from the number one issue down to like number four. So, I mean, it’s still a strong four. It’s not like people don’t give a [crud] about it. They care. But there are a lot of other things. It’s taxes, corruption and inflation. […]

You can tell people are paying attention because they’re talking about supply chain issues and what China’s doing and [etc.] So they’re not just mad that prices are high. They feel like the government screwed up during the pandemic and that’s why prices are high.

And they’d be right about the government. That the feds have allowed meat and poultry monopolies to jack up prices so high is beyond messed up.

Now, it’s just one poll, and from everything I’ve heard from people who track this stuff, the Democrats are doing really, really bad in the suburbs right now. Like blowout bad. But it’s fascinating that the crime issue drops in the suburbs. And I’m betting there are a lot of very thankful Chicago Democrats that relatively few of their incumbents are facing primaries this year.