AUSTIN, Texas — One of the leading questions ahead of Travis County's Democratic primary for District Attorney is the level of safety in Austin over the last four years. Incumbent José Garza and supporters of his reelection have cited years-old data as evidence of his tough-on-crime approach.

CBS Austin spoke with Garza, as well as other supporters of his, including Democratic Texas House Representatives James Talarico and Lulu Flores. In interviews, each of them cited similar sources, including a Forbes article that named Austin as the fifteenth-safest city in the United States.

That report, which was released in January 2023 and is based on factors compiled by MoneyGeek, more than a year ago, was based on the most recent data available at the time, which was from 2021, Garza's first year in office. An updated list from Forbes, out Wednesday, is based on the now-most recent data shared by the federal government from 2022 and notedly does not include Austin on its list of safest cities in the country.

CBS Austin reached out to a spokesperson from Garza's campaign for comment, specifically focused on the Forbes article, but did not hear back.

"What is happening in this race is the question of whether or not we're going to continue to make progress fixing our broken criminal justice system and improving the safety of our community, or whether we're going to take a step backward," Garza told CBS Austin in an interview last week.

Garza's opponent, Jeremy Sylestine, has run on a campaign criticizing Garza for an alleged soft-on-crime approach to prosecutions in Travis County.

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"DA José Garza might spin crime statistics for political purposes, but Travis County residents know better," Sylestine said in part in a statement to CBS Austin. "The reality is under Garza’s leadership, our communities have experienced a significant rise in violent crime - especially homicide, aggravated assault, and motor vehicle theft."

Official statistics, shared by Austin officials with the FBI as part of theNational Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), take several months to be released and, thus, don't necessarily provide an accurate picture of present circumstances. The most recent data available from NIBRS is from 2022, Garza's second year in office.

That data shows Austin coming down from a peak of homicides in 2021, though the number of homicides is still drastically higher than before the pandemic. In that regard, Austin is not particularly unique; that trend, including the peak in 2021 and the slight downward curve in 2022, holds true both across Texas and nationwide.

Early, unofficial data shared by the Austin Police Department as part of the Chief's monthly reports give a more current, if incomplete, picture of trends in Austin crime. The most recent stats, from 2023, show some 70 homicides across 2023, compared to the official FBI data of 69 in 2022 and 80 in 2021.