As November’s midterm elections approach, Democrats hope that the “affordability” angle offers their ticket to reclaiming power.  

That’s an odd strategy reliant upon short voter memories, however, since inflation and gasoline prices reached far higher peaks under Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress.  

Whatever the futility of that upcoming tactic, however, Democrats now confront an even bigger potential problem.  Namely, in the realm of public safety – the primary reason for government’s existence, after all – America just experienced the steepest one-year decline in violent crime since recordkeeping began.  

According to just-released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics, violent crime plummeted approximately 10% in 2025, which constitutes the single largest annual decline since national estimates began in 1936.  Murder and non-negligent manslaughter fell a difficult-to-believe 18%, while robbery fell approximately 19%, rape fell approximately 8% and aggravated assault fell approximately 7%.  For good measure, property crimes simultaneously dropped more than 12%.  

In addition to the record year-over-year murder rate decline, moreover, the overall homicide rate itself fell to approximately 4.1 per 100,000 Americans – its lowest level since 1956.  

For the American electorate, those aren’t merely historic numbers, they come in the wake of a harrowing crime surge of just a few short years ago, thus offering a stark contrast.  

Namely, America suffered the largest one-year homicide increase ever recorded in the lawless Covid year of 2020.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the national homicide rate skyrocketed nearly 30% in a single year, from 6.0 per 100,000 Americans in 2019 to 7.8 in 2020. 

Then in 2021, rather than returning to Earth, murders actually increased further from that elevated lawless baseline.  

At least sixteen major American cities set new homicide records that year, including Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Louisville, Milwaukee, Portland, Rochester, Albuquerque and Tucson. Nationwide, FBI estimates showed murders increasing approximately another 4% in 2021.  

Conspicuously, those two years also coincided with a broader progressive assault against traditional law enforcement.  Across America, “Defund the Police” became a fashionable slogan, progressive prosecutors pursued increasingly permissive policies, bail reform released repeat offenders and police officers found themselves routinely demonized by activists and politicians. The consequences were as natural as they were abominable.  

Fortunately, the pendulum began swinging back.  

Although violent crime began slowly regressing toward the mean in subsequent years, the pivotal point that mustn't be ignored is that the decline dramatically accelerated in 2025, after President Trump reentered the White House.  

Specifically, the FBI’s new figures show violent crime falling approximately twice as rapidly in 2025 as it did in 2024, producing the largest decline in violent crime and murder since recordkeeping began in the 1930s.  

That good news gets even better:  Preliminary evidence suggests that improvement has continued into 2026.  

Although presidents obviously don't personally patrol city streets, prosecute local criminals or determine state and municipal criminal-justice policies, political leadership and policy signals matter.  Donald Trump campaigned unapologetically on restoring law and order, supporting police, targeting violent offenders, enforcing immigration laws and reversing the cultural hostility toward law enforcement that became so fashionable on the political left. 

And once returned to office, President Trump’s administration continued emphasizing those priorities, and today Americans possess tangible results, not mere campaign rhetoric.  

As it relates to this year’s midterm elections, public safety possesses a unique political significance because it’s something that voters don't merely experience via government statistics.  Rather, they see it first-hand.  They experience it walking from a restaurant to their automobile at night, when their children ride public transportation or when businesses remain open instead of fleeing high-crime neighborhoods.  They experience it when shoplifting, carjacking and random street violence no longer seem tolerated as inevitable features of urban life.  

In turn, that creates an uncomfortable contrast for Democrats entering November.  Just a few years ago, Americans watched murder rates explode while “Defund the Police” activists commanded extraordinary influence within the party, including candidate Joe Biden himself.  Today, some of those same activists lead the Democratic Party and others are winning Democratic primaries across America.  

Meanwhile, under a president who made law and order central to his political identity, America just recorded the largest violent-crime decline in modern statistical history.  

Voters remember what the recent disorder felt like, and now they’re experiencing what greater safety feels like.  

Accordingly, as Democrats attempt to persuade Americans that they should restore their Congressional majorities this November, the safest America in generations may prove an inconvenient backdrop for their sales pitch.