As the 2026 midterm elections approach, President Donald Trump has increasingly spotlighted declining violent crime rates across the United States to champion his administration’s “law and order” agenda.
Critics and policy analysts argue that the broad national decline predates Trump’s return to office, driven instead by the fading disruptions of the pandemic, community-level violence intervention programs, and stabilizing local law enforcement staffing.
The White House and the Trump administration have heavily promoted federal data and mid-year reports showing steep drops in violent crime including significant double-digit decreases in homicides, carjackings, and robberies compared to previous years.
Shifting the Political Focus with economic concerns and inflation often weighing heavily on voter sentiment and dinging presidential approval ratings and turning the spotlight to public safety allows Republicans to pivot toward a traditionally strong campaign issue ahead of the midterms.
Trump has directly linked the downward trends to his administration’s law enforcement policies, increased federal backing for police, and aggressive immigration enforcement and deportation efforts.
As reported, Criminologists, non-partisan research groups like the Council on Criminal Justice, and data analysts point out that the drop in violent crime is part of a broader, multi-year downward trend that actually began back in 2023 following the post-pandemic spikes of 2020–2021.
According to excerpts from the FBI report shared by the White House before its publication, murder and non-negligent manslaughter decreased an estimated 18.1% in 2025 while robberies fell an estimated 18.5%.
Some violent crimes, including homicides, surged at the end of the first Trump administration during the COVID pandemic to the highest levels in decades. But the data shows that the subsequent fall predates Trump’s return to office, with homicide rates plummeting in 2023 and 2024 to pre-pandemic lows.
The decline has occurred in cities big and small, in places with officials touting both aggressive policing and progressive police reform and with both a high density and low density of police officers, suggesting no single policy explains the nationwide trend.
Trump has long complained of a “crime epidemic,” particularly in Democratic-run cities, and used that message to justify aggressive federal intervention, including last year’s deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops to Washington.
U.S. President Donald Trump is set to showcase falling violent crime rates on Friday as evidence that his law-and-order agenda is working, seeking to shift attention away from economic concerns that have dented his approval ratings ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Trump will visit the Nassau County Police Academy in New York to unveil 2025 data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that a White House official says will show the largest year-to-year decline in violent crime on record.
FBI Director Kash Patel and newly sworn-in Attorney General Todd Blanche are expected to join the president at the event with police.
The appearance comes as Republicans look for issues that resonate with swing voters amid concerns about inflation and the economic fallout from the war with Iran, while casting Democrats as out of step on public safety.
“President Trump promised to make America safe again and the data proves he has done just that,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said.
