Was Tim Walz right that ‘violent crime was up under Donald Trump’?

In a viral moment from his introduction as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz took a political and personal jab at former President Donald Trump over crime.

"And make no mistake," Walz said at the Aug. 6 Philadelphia rally with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. "Violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That’s not even counting the crimes he committed."

The last part of Walz’s statement referred to Trump’s May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in a scheme to cover up a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

But what about Walz’s assertion that "violent crime was up under Donald Trump," which Walz repeated in an Aug. 7 speech in Eau Claire, Wisconsin? The newly minted vice presidential candidate has a point, but it needs some asterisks.

Four types of crime comprise the FBI’s definition of violent crime: homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The U.S. violent crime rate rose through the 1970s and 1980s, peaking in 1991 and falling since, minus periodic spikes.

During the first three years of Trump’s presidency, the violent crime rate per 100,000 population — the metric the Harris-Walz campaign pointed us to when we asked for comment — fell each year. It went from 377.7 per 100,0000 in 2017 to 373.4 in 2018 to 363.9 in 2019.

But in 2020, the violent crime rate spiked to 385.2 per 100,000 people — higher than any previous year under Trump.

The 2020 spike was especially sharp for murders. In 2020, the number of U.S. murders reported to the FBI increased by 5,795, from 16,619 in 2019 to 22,414 in 2020. 

In any previous year back to 1961, the number of murders had never increased by more than 2,000 in a year, meaning that 2020’s increase was nearly triple the previous record.

Even accounting for the 2020 spike, the violent crime rate in Trump’s final year was still lower than it was during the final year of his predecessor, President Barack Obama. In 2016, the violent crime rate was 389.9 per 100,000, or slightly higher than the 2020 rate.

Another important bit of context: The peak level of violent crime in 2020 represented a far lower rate than existed a few decades ago. 

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In 2020, there were 385.2 violent crimes per 100,000 population. By contrast, the rate never dipped below 500 between 1979 and 2001, and it peaked at 758.2 in 1991.

As we’ve reported, resting blame for the 2020 murder increase solely on Trump ignores how unusual life was in the United States in 2020.

Starting in March 2020, the nation was hit swiftly and severely by the coronavirus pandemic. It upended the economy, changed collective travel habits, drove many people inside and temporarily left many Americans without jobs and income. Another unusual factor that year was the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd by police. Floyd’s killing triggered a national outcry and a reckoning on racial issues.

"I would point to changing attitudes towards policing and police legitimacy as well as police pullbacks in the wake of Floyd's death as potentially primary factors behind the increase," Jeff Asher, an analyst with the consulting company AH Datalytics who specializes in crime data, told PolitiFact in June. 

"There's evidence that increased carrying of firearms in the months after the pandemic might have acted as an accelerant further inflaming the increase," Asher said.

Council on Criminal Justice CEO Adam Gelb has called the 2020 environment "a master class in criminology," given its sudden onset, its duration and its dramatic impact on people and institutions.

Most likely, all of these factors combined and fed off one another. It’s "not possible to disentangle each factor from the pandemic," Asher said.

During 2021, President Joe Biden’s first year in office, the murder rate remained high; murders climbed by 122 that year compared with 2020. Since then, they have fallen, and while data releases currently lag by more than a year, estimates indicate that the murder rate is on track to return to its prepandemic level for 2023 or 2024.

Walz said, "Violent crime was up under Donald Trump."

After dropping the first three years of Trump’s presidency, the rise in the violent crime rate in 2020, his final year in office, was big enough to erase those collective decreases.

However, the violent crime rate in Trump’s final year was still slightly lower than it was during the final year of his predecessor, Obama.

Experts said it’s wrong to pin the blame for the crime increase solely on Trump. The spike was caused by a confluence of the coronavirus pandemic and the societal upheaval after Floyd was murdered by police. 

We rate the statement Half True.