US Elections: Election Intimidation and Violence
By: Lavinia Klarhoefer
Nov 04, 2024
Two assassination attempts on Donald Trump alert to the risk of violence surrounding the 2024 US presidential elections. This week’s graph shows the intensified violence and intimidation in US national elections during the last decade. For both indicators, a score closer to zero means that the situation worsened.
The 2016 presidential campaign was marked by violent incidents at Trump rallies and post-election anti-Trump protests. Electoral violence rose again during the 2020 campaign, culminating in the violent attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters in an attempt to overturn Biden's victory.
Election-related violence continues to impact this year’s election process, the most extreme cases being the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump.
During campaign speeches, Trump has called his opponents “vermin” that need to be rooted out, and recently suggested that he could use the US military or National Guard against the “enemy from within,” referring to his political opponents. Such dehumanizing rhetoric paves the road for further political violence.
In addition, intimidation of election workers has become a salient issue since Trump’s 2020 repeated and baseless accusations of election fraud. Furthermore, “election deniers” elected as house members and local election officials that aim to undermine the electoral process, for example by refusing to certify the results, pose a significant threat.
A new V-Dem Working Paper “Forecasting Electoral Violence” introduces a predictive system for electoral violence. It suggests a significant risk of election-related violence in the United States. The paper emphasizes that safeguarding the electoral process from violence is vital to allow citizens to cast their vote free from fear and to ensure peaceful power transitions.
Read more here
V-Dem Working Paper no 150: Forecasting Electoral Violence
Find out more about the state of US Democracy by making your own graph.
Find out more about what the indicators used in this GoW measure in the V-Dem Codebook.
