An 88 percent majority of black Maryland voters support Governor Larry Hogan’s “re-fund the police” effort.
Hogan is a Republican, though President Joe Biden won the state by 33 points.
The governor recently announced that he intends to invest an additional $150 million into local and state police.
“Thinking that you can improve law enforcement by defunding the police is like saying that you want to improve education by defunding the schools,” Hogan said, according to a report from CBS 13 Baltimore. “It’s absurd and ridiculous.”
“To reverse the tide of rising crime, we need to stop demonizing and sabotaging the dedicated men and women who risk their lives every single day to keep the rest of us safe. Enough is enough. We cannot defund the police. We need to re-fund the police. Instead of less funding, we need more investment in public safety,” Hogan said of the initiative.
According to internal polling from a group aligned with Hogan, which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, 64 percent of likely black voters in the state “strongly support” the governor’s proposal to “provide greatly increased funding to state and local police agencies,” while 24 percent “somewhat support” the policy.
The initiative appears to be popular across the board — with 89 percent of white voters supporting the effort, as well as 74 percent of Hispanic voters.
Democrat politicians in the state have slammed the plan. State House Speaker Adrienne Jones claimed that Hogan is attempting to “politicize” public safety.
Hogan, however, specifically pointed to Baltimore, saying that it is the “poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness.”
“They’re on pace to surpass 300 homicides again this year,” he said. “The Baltimore Police Department is short-staffed by more than 300 officers. The city of Baltimore is a poster child for the basic failure to stop lawlessness. There’s a prosecutor who refuses to prosecute crime. And there’s a revolving door of repeat offenders who are being let right back onto the streets to shoot people again and again.”
“Our $150 million ‘re-fund the police’ initiative will provide a desperately needed shot in the arm to our state and local police agencies and their critical efforts to stop crime,” Hogan said.
