More than a quarter of Americans worry that civil war could be a consequence of this year’s presidential election.
That’s according to polling for The Times in the United Kingdom. Some 27% of American adults were concerned about violence, according to a YouGov survey of 1,266 registered voters from Oct. 18-21.
As former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris campaign across the country for control of the White House, violence has been on the mind of some Americans. So far, at least two people are accused of trying to assassinate Trump on the campaign trail.
About 12% of survey respondents said they knew someone who might take up arms if they thought Trump was cheated out of the White House on Nov. 5. Another 5% said they knew someone who might if they thought Harris lost on account of fraud.
The poll found 84% of U.S. voters said the country was more divided than a decade ago, with 5% saying it is less divided.
In The Center Square’s Voters’ Voice Poll, voters said most of the blame for the two attempts to assassinate Trump during his campaign lies with the alleged shooters themselves, but they assign blame to other factors as well.
Likely voters said the alleged shooters (46%) are responsible for the attempted assassinations. Voters also blamed general divisions in America (40%), overheated rhetoric from Democrats (33%) and lax U.S. Secret Service protection (29%), according to the results of The Center Square’s Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights.
