Poll: Heightened Fear of Terrorism is Rippling Through the Electorate

Yes, and the Democrats want to mock people for it.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Poll Finds National Security Now a Top Concern":

WSJ/NBC poll finds that after terror attacks, national security is now a top concern. https://t.co/f1uyRwCFEl

— Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 15, 2015

Fear of terrorism surges after attacks in Paris and California, WSJ/NBC poll finds, and likely will impact 2016 election.

Heightened fear of terrorism is rippling through the electorate, thrusting national-security issues to the center of the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released on the eve of Republicans’ latest presidential debate.

Some 40% of those polled say national security and terrorism should be the government’s top priority, and more than 60% put it in the top two, up from just 39% eight months ago.

More than one quarter worry they or their family will be a victim of a terror attack. The most prominent news event of 2015, in the public’s mind, was the terrorist attack in Paris.

“For most of 2015, our country’s mood and thus the presidential election was defined by anger and the unevenness of the economic recovery, and now that has abruptly changed to fear,” said Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster who conducted the survey with Republican Bill McInturff.

That undercurrent of anxiety, if it lasts, has the potential to reshape the 2016 policy landscape, shifting attention to national-security issues that traditionally are Republicans’ strong suit and away from the economic issues that Democrats prefer to spotlight.

But for now, the increased concern hasn’t seemed to change the election’s fundamentals: The new poll, as ones before the recent spate of attacks, found voters evenly split on which party they want to control the White House. Still, Mr. McInturff said, candidates are now facing “a very different campaign than the one we thought we were going to be running.”

Republican presidential candidates will be trying to adapt to this environment when they meet on the debate stage Tuesday night in Las Vegas. In the run-up to the debate, candidates have increasingly focused on foreign policy as they try to promote their own leadership skills and discredit their rivals.

Businessman Donald Trump has been betting that his trademark swagger will be a selling point at a time when voters are looking for someone to stand up to terrorists. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is talking tough about defeating Islamic State, but he has stopped short of calling for U.S. ground troops in Iraq and Syria. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has argued that Mr. Cruz has taken votes in the Senate that weakened U.S. intelligence gathering.

Overall, the mood of the electorate has turned bleaker in the weeks since the latest Journal/NBC News survey in late October—a period that included the terrorist attacks in Paris, the shootings by a lone gunman at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., by a pair of Islamic militants...

Still more.