After law enforcement prevented a shooter from entering the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — the third attempt on President Donald Trump’s life in less than two years — commentators sparred over how common political violence has become, and who was more likely to support it.
Conservative broadcaster Ben Ferguson drew criticism from his fellow CNN panelists when he said April 27 that more conservatives will be killed “if the Democratic Party doesn’t wake up and realize that words had meaning and they light the fuse.”
“Twenty-five percent of the Democratic Party believes that political violence is appropriate,” Ferguson said.
The assassination attempts on Trump, combined with the killings of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk and UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, have heightened political violence as a public concern. After the most recent attempt on Trump’s life, the White House blamed rhetoric from Democrats for promoting violence. Democrats countered that this wrongly conflates criticism of the president and his policies with encouraging violence, and said that Trump and his allies have at times encouraged violence.
We looked through recent polling to get a sense of how broad the support for political violence is among Democrats, and other Americans. We found evidence of an increasing tolerance for violence among Democrats and liberals, reversing some previous data showing conservatives more tolerant of political violence. Still, most people, regardless of political affiliation, reject political violence.
“The No. 1 finding is that tens of millions of Americans support political violence, while between 75% and 80% of Americans abhor political violence,” said Robert Pape, director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats.
Here is some of what we found.
1. The vast majority of Americans oppose violence for political ends.
Three polls from late 2025 — by Reuters/Ipsos, Marquette University Law School and the Public Religion Research Institute — found that between 79% and 91% of Americans oppose political violence.
“Don’t forget the big story: Almost everyone opposes political violence,” said Steven Smith, an Arizona State University political scientist.
2. Americans’ opposition to political violence has been eroding.
In the most recent Public Religion Research Institute poll, from December 2025, 41% of respondents said they “completely disagree” with this statement: “Because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.”
That shows a bit of an erosion of the public stance against political violence. The group has asked the question 15 times since March 2021; the previous low was 49% in September 2025. As recently as December 2022, 57% completely disagreed with political violence. Most of the movement has come from people saying “completely disagree” moving into the “mostly disagree” category.
Experts caution that poll responses can be sensitive to recent incidents — of which there have been many, ranging from the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the capitol to the Kirk’s September 2025 assassination.
“If there is even a hint that actions caused by the other party might justify resistance, there could be marginal differences in responses to seemingly generic questions,” Smith said. In other words, when you ask the question — and the news currents swirling around at that time — can shape how some poll respondents process and answer the question.
3. Democrats and liberals are becoming more open to political violence.
In the Marquette poll, taken days after Kirk was killed, 15% of Democrats agreed with the statement that it is “justified for Americans today to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals.” That was higher than for independents (12%) and Republicans (6%).
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found a similar disparity when asking whether it is acceptable “for someone in my political party to commit violence to achieve a political goal.” Among Democrats, 7% said yes, more than twice the rate of Republicans. (A differently phrased question found similar results between the parties.)
Meanwhile, poll breakdowns by ideology rather than partisanship show even more dramatic differences.
The Marquette poll found fully one-quarter of self-described “very liberal” respondents agreed that it is “justified for Americans today to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals.” “Very conservative” respondents agreed at a lower rate, 10%.
Since 2021, Democrats have become more comfortable with political violence while Republicans have become less comfortable, according to Public Religion Research Institute polling.
In August 2021, eight months after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, 2021, 35% of Republicans said things were so off-track that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country,” while 10% of Democrats agreed. Now, respondents from the two parties have converged in the middle: In the December 2025 poll, 19% of Republicans agreed and 17% of Democrats agreed.
4. Younger Americans today are more open to political violence than members of other age groups.
Age is another notable factor in recent polling about political violence.
The Public Religion Research Institute asked for opinions about whether a given action would be justified to advance an important political goal. For each of three examples — killing a political opponent, attacking a political opponent and damaging property — respondents in the 18-to-29 group were consistently more tolerant of violence. For all three examples, those saying they “completely disagree” with violence lagged older voters by about 25 percentage points.
5. Tolerance for political violence depends on the target.
In polling by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats and NORC, respondents judged violence against different targets differently.
Democrats were more willing than Republicans to justify violence to protect abortion rights and trans people. Republicans were more willing to support violence to keep trans women out of girls’ sports — 22% said such violence would be justified.
The strongest Democratic rate of justifying violence was to remove Trump from office. More than 27% of Democrats said violence was justified for that purpose.
The wording of poll questions can make a difference. For instance, the Public Religion Research Institute’s longstanding use of “patriot” in the question may affect responses, said Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. In recent decades, “patriot” has had a conservative connotation in political discourse, and that may explain the historically higher rates of support for political violence by Republicans in the group’s polls.
Why is this happening now?
Deep political polarization, the demonization of political opponents and a coarsening of political rhetoric are driving these rising rates of acceptance around violence, experts said.
“Conditions are ripe to see an increasing amount of political violence as both a tactic and an outcome,” said Amy Cooter, co-founder and deputy director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism. “Once violence starts to be visible and escalates as a political and politicized tool, it can enhance perceptions of its legitimacy as a tactic and inspire additional violent actions.”
Recent political violence has affected both Democrats and Republicans.
In addition to Kirk’s assassination and the attempts on Trump’s life, Republicans were targeted in a mass shooting at a congressional baseball practice in 2017. Democrats were targeted in the 2011 shooting of then-Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz.; a 2022 attack on the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; and the attacks on Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in 2025.
The Trump supporters who stormed the capitol Jan. 6, 2021, falsely claimed Democrats had stolen the 2020 election. When Trump won back the White House four years later, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of everyone who had been charged in the attack.
Cooter and coauthor Michael Jensen, director of research for American University’s Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab, wrote in October 2025 that 13 victims died from left-wing attacks from 2016 through the first half of 2025, compared to 82 victims from jihadist attacks and 112 people from right-wing attacks.
