U.S. Presidential Parties and Violent Crime, 1960–2019

This short report examines whether annual U.S. violent crime rates differed systematically between Democratic and Republican presidencies from 1960 to 2019. Using FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data, the study estimates Ordinary Least Squares models relating the national violent crime rate to presidential party, first bivariately and then with controls for a linear time trend and unemployment. Democratic presidential years were associated with lower violent crime rates than Republican years, but the estimated differences were modest and statistically nonsignificant across specifications. Unemployment showed borderline evidence of a positive association with violent crime. Supplemental checks using alternative temporal specifications and coding choices yielded similar conclusions. Nevertheless, the findings suggest that simple partisan comparisons of crime trends offer weak evidence of presidential-party influence on national violent crime.