Americans across party lines say that the United States is in a political crisis, according to the findings of a new national poll conducted after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The Quinnipiac University survey, released this week, found that 79% of voters nationwide believe the country is in a political crisis, with just 18% disagreeing. The survey also found that 93% of Democrats, 84% of independents, and 60% of Republicans said the nation is in a political crisis.
The Kirk assassination, which occurred earlier this month while he was speaking at a college campus event at Utah Valley University, has intensified concerns about the state of political discourse in the United States. Kirk was a co-founder of the politically potent Turning Point USA conservative youth organization, close ally and outside adviser to President Donald Trump, and media star. The assassination also comes in the wake of last year’s attempted assassinations against Trump and the recent murders of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, with a top Democratic state senator and his wife who lived nearby shot and seriously wounded.
According to the poll, 71% of voters think politically motivated violence in the United States today is a very serious problem, with 22% saying it’s a somewhat serious problem. Only 4% said it was not so serious or not a problem at all. The survey’s release noted a significant jump from Quinnipiac University’s June 26 poll, which found 54% of respondents considered politically motivated violence a very serious problem. Nearly 6 in 10 questioned said they didn’t think it will be possible to lower the temperature on political rhetoric and speech in the United States, with just over a third disagreeing.
And a majority — 54% — said they think political violence in the United States will worsen over the next few years, while 27% said they think it will remain about the same, and 14% saying they believe it will ease. The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted Sept. 18–21, with 1,276 self-identified registered voters surveyed nationwide. The poll’s overall sampling error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.