Which states have the highest number of convicted politicians by party during the 2020s?

1. What the reference databases actually contain — and what they don’t

The most relevant public compilation is the Wikipedia page "List of 2020s American state and local politicians convicted of crimes," which arranges convicted state and local officials by date and state and includes party labels in many entries ^{[1] [2]}. That page (and its Wikiwand mirror) is a dynamic, itemized list of individuals, not an analytic summary that totals convictions per state by party, and category pages such as "American politicians convicted of crimes by state" list state-specific pages instead of aggregated partisan counts ^{[1] [3]}.

2. Why you can’t yet produce a definitive state-by-party ranking from available sources

Available sources are either raw lists (Wikipedia, Wikiwand) or databases that track misconduct without producing the exact metric you asked for (GovTrack misconduct database, Ballotpedia collections, TRAC bulletins) — they record convictions, indictments, or noteworthy misconduct but do not publish a consolidated table of convictions per state sorted by party for the 2020s in the materials provided ^{[4] [1] [2] [5] [6]}. Therefore any numeric ranking would require extracting each listed conviction and coding party and state from the itemized entries — a task not already done in the cited reporting.

3. What the existing evidence suggests about geographic patterns

Academic and policy literature cited in the provided set indicates that absolute counts of convictions tend to be higher in more populous states while per-capita or per-employee rates can be higher in smaller or one-party-dominant states; Illinois and the Chicago area have been repeatedly identified as high in corruption convictions historically ^{[7] [8] [9]}. That means a simple state-by-state count could be influenced by population, density of local jurisdictions, and federal prosecutorial focus; the sources note that populous states often lead in absolute convictions while per-capita measures shift the picture ^{[7] [9]}.

4. Partisan comparisons: raw numbers vs. normalized measures

Multiple sources warn that raw partisan tallies are misleading without normalization. Scholarly work and compilations suggest that when adjusted for opportunity (number of officeholders, tenure, or population), partisan disparities often shrink or disappear; some analyses find no systematic partisan bias after controlling for exposure and time in office ^{[10] [9]}. Advocacy outlets and partisan commentators, meanwhile, highlight cases that serve political narratives — CREW and other groups emphasize certain administrations’ cases, while other outlets emphasize opposing-party convictions — underscoring the need for neutral, normalized counting ^{[11] [9]}.

5. How to produce the ranking you asked for (method and pitfalls)

To answer your original question authoritatively you would need to: (a) extract every conviction entry from the decade list and any state category pages, (b) verify party affiliation and state for each conviction, (c) decide inclusion rules (state and local only? include federal? include plea deals? include vacated convictions?), and (d) present both absolute counts and normalized rates (per million residents or per number of officeholders). The sources emphasize that list scope and inclusion criteria materially affect results and that pardons or vacated convictions complicate counts ^{[1] [2] [11] [8]}.

6. Practical next steps and recommended sources to compile an answer

If you want a ranked list, I can compile one from the Wikipedia decade list and related state category pages by extracting each entry and coding party and state; this will produce absolute counts and — if you request — normalized rates. Note that the underlying material is a dynamic crowd-sourced compilation and should be cross-checked against primary records (DOJ press releases, TRAC conviction bulletins, state court records) for anything you intend to use as definitive evidence ^{[1] [6] [7]}.

Limitations: the available sources provided here do not already contain a state-by-state, party-sorted ranking for 2020s convictions, and Wikipedia’s list is dynamic and not an official DOJ tally ^{[1] [2] [6]}.