Nearly a third of Americans – 30% – say people may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.
It's a sharp rise from 18 months ago, when 19% of Americans said the same.
The belief that violence may be the answer has grown among Republicans and independents – up 3 and 7 percentage points, respectively, since April last year. But the largest increase has been among Democrats. Now 28% of Democrats share that view, up 16 points.
It comes on the heels of recent high-profile acts of political violence in the United States, marked by the assasination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah last month, the murder of a Democratic state legislator and her husband in Minnesota in June, a Molotov cocktail thrown into the Pennsylvania governor's mansion in April and two assassination attempts on Donald Trump last summer when he was running for reelection.
Nearly a third of Americans (30%) say people may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. It's a sharp rise from 18 months ago, when 19% of Americans said the same. Graphic by Jenna Cohen/PBS News.
At the same time, the number of Americans who believe the country is moving in the wrong direction has grown since Trump returned to the Oval Office. In the latest poll, 62% said the country is headed off track, up 8 points since March. That includes 68% of independents.
Thirty-eight percent believe the country is headed in the right direction, the poll found.
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"We've had an erosion in a lot of norms and rules, and in our institutions" that has accelerated in the last year, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist University Institute for Public Opinion. "The cloud over all this remains the excessive polarization on a lot of issues. So the country is more divided. Our temperature is now well above normal. We're breaking a pretty high fever right now."
The number of Americans who believe the country is moving in the wrong direction has grown since Trump returned to the Oval Office. In a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released Oct.1, 62% said the country is headed off track, up 8 points since March. Graphic by Jenna Cohen/PBS News.
The rising support for violence is particularly alarming to Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a professor at American University and founding director of PERIL, the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab. She said the latest poll findings "should be a real wake-up call."
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"It's a horrific moment to see that people honestly believe that there's no other alternative at this point than to resort to political violence," Miller-Idriss said. "One of the things you really want to see right now is universal condemnation of the use of violence and de-escalation of rhetoric."
Growing concern about political violence, especially among Republicans
Despite the heated political climate, or perhaps because of it, the vast majority of Americans believe politically motivated violence is a major problem.
About three-quarters of poll respondents see it as a significant issue, an increase of 4 points from July, before Kirk's death. Eighteen percent said politically motivated violence is a minor problem, while 4% said it's not a problem at all.
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Those who believe it's a major problem include majorities of all political parties, including 72% of Democrats and 80% of independents.
Republicans demonstrated the sharpest increase in concern, with 84% now saying it's a major problem, a 15-point increase from three months ago.
"Charlie Kirk's assassination was a turning point" for the nation and the world about how bad things have gotten, Miller-Idriss said.
Kirk's killing, seen by millions of people in viral graphic video clips on social media, was quickly labeled by Republican leaders and law enforcement as left-wing violence. Authorities haven't provided a full motive for the alleged shooter. But, as Miller-Idriss notes, the data over the last decade shows the majority of political violence originated from right-wing and white supremacist groups.
A placard reading "this is the turning point" is placed next to flowers and U.S. flags at a memorial for slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 29, 2025. Photo by Jim Urquhart/ Reuters
"It is really important to show and to document the rise in the left and left-wing extremism," she said. "It still doesn't reach the threshold of any legitimate researcher I know of saying it's the biggest threat."
While Americans largely agree politically motivated violence is a problem, the country is split on who is most threatened by that violence.
ANALYSIS: What data shows about political extremist violence
Half of Americans are more concerned about politically motivated violence against public officials. The other half are more worried about violence against protesters.
About three-quarters of Republicans are more worried about violence against public officials while seven in 10 Democrats worry about violence against protesters.
Miller-Idriss said Americans "do not want to see rising political violence be used as an opportunity for political leaders of any platform, of any party, to suppress freedom of speech, to attack individuals for their ideas when those ideas are protected free speech in this country, because that is a slippery slope to authoritarianism."
Majority of adults feel the U.S. has gone too far in restricting free speech
In the weeks after Kirk's death, the Trump administration and the president's conservative allies made an organized effort to call out people they said celebrated Kirk's death online. When Vice President JD Vance hosted Kirk's podcast, he encouraged his followers to report people's comments to their employers in an effort to get them fired.
WATCH: Firings over callous remarks on Kirk's killing spark debate on limits of free speech
Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel was temporarily removed from the air after conservatives complained about a joke he made after Kirk's death and FCC Chair Brendan Carr suggested the government could punish ABC. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Carr told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. Hours later, ABC suspended Kimmel's show.
Nearly eight in 10 Americans said the U.S. has gone too far in restricting the right to freedom of speech, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. Another 19% said the country has gone too far in expanding freedom of speech. Nearly a third of Republicans share that view. Graphic by Jenna Cohen/ PBS News
Carr has also suggested the FCC could investigate other broadcasters if they don't "serve the public interest."
Free-speech advocates and many Republicans, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, warned that a crackdown on speech could eventually backfire on conservatives.
A woman holds a copy of the U.S. Constitution during a Free Speech rally on April 22, 2025. Photo by Brendan McDermid/ Reuters
Nearly eight in 10 Americans said the U.S. has gone too far in restricting the right to freedom of speech, according to the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. Another 19% said the country has gone too far in expanding freedom of speech. Nearly a third of Republicans share that view.
READ MORE: Trump manages another Republican makeover, this time on free speech and cancel culture
Will Creeley, the legal director for FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, is encouraged that the overwhelming majority of Americans are concerned about government efforts to limit free speech.
"We've seen an unprecedented assault on freedom of expression over the last eight months," Creeley said. "The scale, scope, severity and volume of this attack on dissent and criticism has been serious."
About four in 10 Americans believe the federal government should play no role in deciding what speech is unacceptable or too extreme. Another 44% believe the government should play a minor role in those determinations, while 15% said the government should have a major role.
READ MORE: Trump campaigned as a protector of free speech but critics say his actions threaten it
If the government does weigh in on the validity of speech, one thing Americans across political divides seem to agree on is that the Supreme Court — not the president — should make those determinations. Eleven percent of Americans, including 15% of Republicans, would put their trust in the president to define extreme speech, compared to 62% who said that decision should be left to the justices.
"The government shouldn't have a major role or really any role in deciding what we can say, think or debate," Creeley said. "And if folks disagree with that, they should imagine their political opponents in power. You might think differently when someone is occupying the White House or Congress who doesn't like what you have to say."
More takeaways from the latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll:
- Vaccines: The overwhelming majority of Americans – 82% – support mandating vaccines against certain diseases for children before they enroll in school, despite recent false claims from Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. about vaccine safety and plans in Florida to roll back vaccine requirements for public schools.
- National Guard deployments: Half of Americans (52%) support the deployment of the National Guard to local communities to reduce crime, while 48% oppose the moves, including a third of Americans who strongly disapprove. Fifty-three percent of Republicans are strongly in favor, while 60% of Democrats are strongly opposed.
- Guns: Recent high-profile shootings, including at a church in Michigan and a Catholic school in Minnesota, have again raised the prospect of how to balance the rights of gun owners with public safety. In this poll, 40% of Americans said it is more important to protect gun rights. Fifty-nine percent said it's more important to control gun violence. That number has risen 10 percentage points since March 2013, just a few months after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut left 26 students and teachers dead. Notably, more than 70% of Gen Z respondents, who have grown up in an era of school shootings, said controlling gun violence should be the priority.
- Epstein files: About three-quarters of Americans support the release of all files related to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with his victims' names redacted. Another 13% support the release of some of the files with those names removed, while 9% say the files should not be released. The president, who supported the release of the documents during his reelection campaign last year, has shifted his stance on the case since returning to the White House, calling it a "hoax."
PBS News, NPR and Marist Poll conducted a survey from Sept. 22 through Sept. 26, 2025, that polled 1,477 U.S. adults with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, and 1,329 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.