August 2, 2024
In the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on July 13, only a third of adults are confident the Secret Service can protect presidential candidates from violence. A majority believe political division and the Secret Service hold the most responsibility for the assassination attempt.
Most people are attending to the coverage of the assassination attempt. The survey, taken about two weeks after the attempt on Trump’s life, finds that 87% of adults have heard or read at least some about the event, including 57% who have heard a lot. Just 10% have heard only a little and 3% have heard nothing at all.
Congress is holding hearings in both the House and Senate, featuring testimonies from the leadership of the FBI and Secret Service. However, just a third of the public is very confident that the Department of Homeland Security will conduct a full and fair investigation of the assassination attempt. Republicans and independents are particularly skeptical, with only a quarter extremely or very confident in the investigation compared with about half of Democrats.
Similarly, just 3 in 10 are very confident the Secret Service can protect presidential candidates from political violence ahead of the election. Once again, Republicans and independents are less confident in the Secret Service compared with Democrats.
A majority of Republicans, Democrats, and independents believe political division in the United States has at least a moderate amount of responsibility for the assassination attempt. However, partisans are far more likely to point the finger at the political speech from the other side as a cause of the assassination attempt.
Seventy-two percent of the public also place responsibility for the assassination attempt on the Secret Service, particularly Republicans. Republicans are also more likely to blame the media. Democrats are more inclined to cite the availability of guns in the United States compared with independents or Republicans.
The nationwide poll was conducted July 25-29, 2024 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,143 adults. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.1 percentage points.
- Suggested Citation: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (July 2024). “Few are very confident the Secret Service can protect presidential candidates from political violence” https://apnorc.org/projects/few-are-very-confident-the-secret-service-can-protect-presidential-candidates-from-political-violence/
