County politics predicted the 2020 spike

Using county‑level CDC death certificates, the authors show that the 2020 homicide surge varied systematically by county political culture: Democratic‑leaning counties tended to see larger increases than Republican‑leaning counties, even after accounting for local trends. They also rule out a simple link to COVID fatality counts or per‑capita gun sales, shifting attention to other local institutions and social context. — If true, this pattern reframes the 2020 violence surge as partly a governance and political‑culture problem rather than a uniform pandemic or gun‑supply effect, changing where policy scrutiny and reform should focus.