Is crime down under President Trump? Yes, and sharply, but voters aren’t giving him much credit for it.
Violent crime has fallen to some of its lowest levels in modern American history.
An FBI report released in August showed violent crime fell 9.3% in 2025, the largest one-year decline since the bureau began estimating national crime trends in 1936.
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FBI data shared with The Times compares Mr. Trump’s first 20 months in office with the end of 2024. The homicide rate dropped roughly 16%, to 4.1 per 100,000 people from 4.9. Violent crime arrests rose 90%, to 53,969 from 28,405.
Yet when the Pew Research Center asked voters to name their most important midterm issue, fewer than 4% said crime.
Oklahoma City-based pollster Pat McFerron said he is not even polling on crime. “Crime has been replaced with affordability,” he said.
How much credit Mr. Trump deserves is debatable. Jeff Werniak, deputy police chief in Posen, Illinois, said, “I would say maybe 99% of the crime reduction is because of the Trump administration.”
Thaddeus Johnson, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice, said, “No one can take credit for the decrease, and there’s no single cause of it.”
The White House sidestepped questions about credit. Spokeswoman Lauren Bis said, “He promised to make America safe again, and the data proves he has done just that.”
Read more:
• Violent crime plummets in America, but voters fail to give Trump the credit
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