Not an anomaly: 2020's red states have higher murder rates

The murder rates in Trump-voting states from 2020 have exceeded those in Biden-voting states every year since 2000, according to a new analysis by ThirdWay, a center-left think tank.

Why it matters: Republicans have built their party on being the crime-fighting candidates, even as murder rates in red states have outpaced blue states by an average of 23% over the past two decades.

Four reliably-red states consistently made the top of the list — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Missouri.

Driving the news: Third Way's report analyzed homicide data for all 50 states from 2000 through 2020, using CDC data.

They used the 2020 presidential election results to characterize "red states" from the "blue states."

The findings build on a previous Third Way report that only analyzed murder rates from 2019-2020. This time, they write, they wanted "to see if this one-year Red State murder epidemic was an anomaly."