A new study by the Heritage Foundation has found that murder rates are 60 percent higher in Democrat-run counties compared to those led by Republicans.
The study, conducted by the Foundation, debunked the popular talking point among several high-profile liberals that red states have the highest homicide numbers.
According to a report by Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Dayaratna, murder rates have been higher in “blue counties” than they have been in “red counties” since 2002.
Dayaratna explains that using state-level data for homicides is misleading because crimes are prosecuted at the local level.
California’s Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom has publicly stated that “8 of the top 10 murder states are red.”
Meanwhile, leftist billionaire and Democrat megadonor George Soros wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year that “violent crime in recent years has generally been increasing more quickly in jurisdictions without reform-minded prosecutors.”
However, according to Dayaratna, studies cited by Democrats make that same argument about state-level murder rates.
These studies, including a recent study from Third Way titled “The Two-Decade Red State Murder Problem,” use a “flawed” methodology.
The methodology is flawed because crime is a local issue and, therefore, crime analysis must be undertaken at the local