Americans fear their country is spinning out of control after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and concern is growing that the Nov. 5 election could lead to more political violence, a Reuters/Ipsos poll that ended on Tuesday found.
The two-day survey found Republican presidential nominee Trump holding a slight lead among registered voters – 43% to 41% – over Democratic US President Joe Biden, an advantage that was within the survey’s margin of error of 3 percentage points, indicating the attempt on Trump’s life has caused no major shift in voter sentiment.
But 80% of voters — including both Democrats and Republicans — said they agreed with the statement that “the country is spinning out of control.” The poll, conducted online, surveyed 1,202 American adults across the country, including 992 registered voters.
Trump narrowly escaped death on Saturday when a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his ear while he was speaking at an election rally in Pennsylvania. Blood streamed down his face and he uttered the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!” while pumping his fist in the air as he was carried off the stage. One person at the rally died and two others were seriously injured.
The shooting brought back memories of turbulent political periods such as the 1960s, when Democratic President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, followed by the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
About 84% of voters in the survey said they were worried that extremists would commit acts of violence after the election, up from a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May, which found 74% of voters had that fear.
Fears of political violence in the US grew when thousands of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, with the aim of overturning Trump’s election loss to Biden. Four people died on the day of the attack, and a Capitol Police officer who fought against the rioters died the next day.
While Americans said they fear violence, very few see it as justifiable. Just 5% of respondents said it was acceptable for someone in their political party to use violence to achieve political goals, down from 12% in a June 2023 Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The assassination attempt on Trump dominated media headlines and fueled talk among some of his conservative Christian supporters that he was being protected by God.
In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, 65% of registered Republicans said Trump is “supported by divine grace or the will of God.” Eleven percent of Democrats agreed.
The United States leads rich countries in the adoption of religion, with evangelicals here largely aligned with the Republican Party in recent decades. About 77% of Americans surveyed in 2022 said they believed in God, compared with 56% of Canadian and 39% of British respondents, according to a poll by the Gallup International Association.
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