AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File
A troubling number of Americans who are following conservative media outlets are willing to support political violence, a poll shows as we stumble towards yet another Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes™.
What could go wrong? Sigh.
The poll, highlighted in Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources newsletter for CNN, was conducted by nonpartisan pollster PRRI as part of its “Challenges to Democracy: The 2024 Election in Focus” review in partnership with The Brookings Institution. A “representative sample of 5,352 adults who are part of the Ipsos KnowledgePanel” were surveyed from Aug. 16 – Sept. 4. The margin of error for the entire sample is +/- 1.82 percentage points.
“Many right-wing media viewers have been radicalized,” Stelter pointed out, and are “much more likely than other Americans to agree with the notion that ‘true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.'”
Republicans overall are more likely than Democrats to support political violence, the poll found. “Nearly three in ten Republicans
While most Americans (80%) disagree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions,” Republicans (22%) are more likely to agree than independents (14%) or Democrats (12%).
The poll also looked at the influence conservative media has on how willing their viewers are to support political violence:
Americans who trust conservative news outlets are the most likely to support political violence (41%), followed by 30% of those who most trust Fox News, 18% of those who do not watch any TV news, and 13% of those who most trust mainstream TV news.
There were similar findings when PRRI asked about support for sending “armed everyday citizens to show up as poll watchers,” even if they end up intimidating voters:
Just 18% of Americans agree with the idea that “to ensure a fair vote for the presidential election this November, we need armed everyday citizens to show up as poll watchers, even if this makes some voters uncomfortable.” Roughly one-quarter of Republicans (27%) and one in ten independents (14%) and Democrats (12%) agree. Republicans who hold favorable views of Trump are
about three times as likely as those who hold unfavorable views to agree (30% vs. 11%).Over one-third of Americans who most trust conservative news outlets (36%) as well as 28% of those who most trust Fox News agree that armed citizens are needed to ensure a fair election in November, compared with just 16% of those who do not watch TV news and 15% of those who most trust mainstream media outlets.
PRRI has tracked support for political violence for several years, and published the below graph showing that this support is not just higher among Republicans, it’s trended upwards again in recent months.
Previous peaks in Republican support for political violence occurred in September 2023 — shortly after former President Donald Trump’s criminal indictments in the federal classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 election cases, and the Georgia election interference case — and then in early 2021, when Trump’s baseless claims of fraud in the 2020 election culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S Capitol.