Poll: 46% of Americans think San Francisco is unsafe

SAN FRANCISCO - A new poll shows nearly half of Americans say they believe San Francisco is unsafe. 

Survey results from a Gallup poll found that 46% feel San Francisco is not a safe place to live or visit.

The survey also found political preferences influenced perception of safety.

A total of 74% of Democrats found San Francisco to be safe compared to just 32% of Republicans.

The findings come in a Gallup poll that looked at 16 large cities across the United States. 

San Francisco, Seattle and Minneapolis were all cities where Americans’ perceptions of safety had fallen during the past 17 years, the report said. 

The poll, released this week, showed that Americans were most likely to believe Dallas was safe, as well as Boston.

San Francisco mayoral spokesman Jeff Cretan told the San Francisco Chronicle the political divide in perception shows the "pervasive impact of right-wing attacks" on the city, including in the media. 

"The Mayor is laser focused on addressing our public safety challenges, especially around the spread of fentanyl," he said. "We know our issues around property crime and drug dealing, but our violent crime rates remain lower than cities ranked higher on this list and have gone down since 2006."