“California has lower homicide rates than Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma.”
What PolitiFact found
Data for 2022 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that California has a lower rate of homicide than Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma, and roughly in the proportions that Newsom said. Data from 2023 collected by the FBI generally mirrors the CDC data. For overall violent crime rate — which includes homicides, rapes, aggravated assaults, and robberies — California’s rate is higher than Oklahoma’s and Alabama’s.
Their words, from the summary they publish with the rating.
In short
Gavin Newsom (Governor, D-Calif.) made this claim around 10 June 2025. PolitiFact (United States) looked into it and published its finding on 16 June 2025, 6 days later. Its rating was “Mostly True”.
Gavin Newsom has 14 checked claims in this archive. Fact-checking organisations rated 2 of them false or fake, 11 misleading or mixed and 0 true.
Where the claim appeared
Links recorded by PolitiFact. Some posts may have been deleted since.
This check was done by PolitiFact, not by DoesItStand. We list it so you can find it. Their full evidence and reasoning are in their article.