A quarter of American adults — including 44% of self-identified Democrats — say they support the use of force to prevent President Donald Trump from being president, according to a new survey’s findings described by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape. Pape is also warning that the 2026 midterm elections could produce a level of political violence not seen in the U.S. in decades — and, under a worst-case scenario, could become “the most violent election in American history.”
“We haven’t seen this level of violence, political violence, since the 1960s,” Pape said in a recent interview. Pape is director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, or CPOST, which has been tracking Americans’ attitudes toward political violence since 2021. CPOST conducts nationally representative surveys with NORC (National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago. Pape said his concern about November is heightened because several pressures are converging at once: deep partisan hostility, rapid demographic and social change, economic anxiety, and an electorate in which significant minorities tell pollsters that political force can be justified.
