How Did Tim Walz Do at Black Lives Mattering?

Not so hot, it turns out: Minnesota's black homicide victimization rate has been 83% worse under Walz than during the preceding decade.

How did Tim Walz do as governor of Minnesota since 2019 at his (at least rhetorically) highest priority: making sure Black Lives Matter?

Eh … not that great.

In 2018, the year before Walz became governor, 10.9 blacks per 100,000 died by homicide. By 2021, in the third year of Walz’s governorship, the black rate of dying by homicide had almost tripled to 29.8.

Since then, it’s come down, but 2023 was still dramatically worse for Black Lives Mattering in terms of not getting shot (typically by another black) than the average for the decade preceding Walz’s coming to power.

During the decade before Walz, the black homicide victimization rate averaged 12.8 per annum versus 23.4 during Walz’s 5 years (2019-2023) covered by the CDC, an increase of 83%.

Whites were killed by homicide 22% more often under Walz than during the previous 10 years.

Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate went up 45% from 2009-2018 to 2019-2023 compared to up 83% in Minnesota.

If you don’t believe me, I encourage you to go ahead and download the cause-of-death data from the CDC’s WONDER database tracking all deaths in the U.S. yourself.