Journal Poll: Crime still top-of-mind for residents as concern over homelessness grows

Crime and homelessness are atop Albuquerque voters’ minds as a November local election nears, with drug abuse and trafficking next in line, a new Journal Poll found.

More than half of Albuquerque voters, 53%, cited crime as the biggest issue facing the city, the poll found. Homelessness followed close behind, being cited by 47% of surveyed voters.

Myriad other issues also popped up in the poll’s top 10, including housing costs, the overall economy, unemployment and the cost of living. Though the poll asked residents for their top issue, multiple answers were accepted when volunteered by voters, which is why percentages for the top issues exceed 100%.

Other issues appeared much less often than crime or homelessness, adding up to 3 to 4%.

While crime was top of mind for residents during the last election cycle in 2021, with 66% of residents citing it as their primary concern, worries over homelessness have doubled over the four years since a previous Journal Poll.

Now, 47% of voters view homelessness as Albuquerque’s biggest stumbling block.

Brian Sanderoff, the president of Albuquerque-based Research & Polling Inc., which conducted the poll, said he didn’t find the growing concern surprising.

“The homelessness issue frustrates people because no one has found an effective or viable solution to address it, at least, the more visual aspects of it,” Sanderoff said.

Seeing people living on the streets is a daily part of many residents’ routines, Sanderoff said.

This poll correlates with the reality on Albuquerque’s streets. Today, an estimated 2,740 people are homeless in the city, which is twice as many as in 2021, according to the latest Point-In-Time Count by the New Mexico Coalition to End Homelessness.

Meanwhile, concern over homelessness is shared equally by both Democrats and Republicans at 48%. Independents also care about the issue, with 39% listing it first.

The story is different for resident’s opinions on crime and perceived safety.

Republicans show “significantly” more concern about crime than Democrats, Sanderoff said, and are more likely to say they feel somewhat or very unsafe.

“Crime has become more of a partisan issue to the extent that many people fault the mayor for our high crime rate,” Sanderoff said.

Sanderoff also added that people who disapprove of Mayor Tim Keller were more than twice as likely to cite crime as their top concern. The same follows for perceived safety, with nearly twice as many people who disapprove of the mayor saying they feel somewhat unsafe.

Though citizens’ perceived safety hasn’t changed much since the last poll, Sanderoff said that 40% of voters feeling somewhat to very unsafe was “an unsettling number.”

Sanderoff also noted that voter’s top five issues were all “interrelated,” from the cost of housing to drug abuse to crime.

What’s no longer on the list of issues is also important, Sanderoff said. Poor education, which was the third ranked issue in 2021 at 5%, no longer appears in the top 10.

Methodology

The Journal Poll is based on a random sample of 514 voters who cast ballots in the 2021 and/or 2023 local government election, and a sample of adults who registered to vote since January 2024 and who said they are likely to vote in the upcoming local government election.

To ensure a representative sample, Research & Polling, Inc. sets quotas for race, gender and age, and weights by education level and party affiliation, if necessary, based on traditional voting patterns in local government elections.

The poll was conducted Sept. 19 through Sept. 26. The voter sample size of 514 has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. The margin of error grows for subsamples.

All interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers, based in Albuquerque, with multiple callbacks to individuals that did not initially answer the phone.

Both cellphone numbers (96%) and landlines (4%) of likely voters were used.