The murder rates in Trump-voting states from 2020 have exceeded those in Biden-voting states every year since 2000, according to a new analysis by ThirdWay, a center-left think tank.
Why it matters: Republicans have built their party on being the crime-fighting candidates, even as murder rates in red states have outpaced blue states by an average of 23% over the past two decades.
Four reliably-red states consistently made the top of the list — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri.
The murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Donald Trump has exceeded the murder rate in the 25 states that voted for Joe Biden in every year from 2000 to 2020.
Over this 21-year span, this Red State murder gap has steadily widened from a low of 9% more per capita red state murders in 2003 and 2004 to 44% more per capita red state murders in 2019, before settling back to 43% in 2020.
Altogether, the per capita Red State murder rate was 23% higher than the Blue State murder rate when all 21 years were combined.
If Blue State murder rates were as high as Red State murder rates, Biden-voting states would have suffered over 45,000 more murders between 2000 and 2020.
