Poll reveals an overwhelming majority of Americans say the country is sliding into chaos

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has changed politics in the United States and it hasn’t left Americans hopeful about the future of the nation. New poll findings revealed the concerns many voters are feeling after the shooting. 

A two-day poll from Reuters and Ipsos conducted in the days that followed the shooting in Pennsylvania found that a majority of the approximately 1,900 people who were surveyed believed that “acts of violence” were “throwing the country into chaos.”

84% of registered voters reported that they were “concerned that extremists will commit acts of violence after the election if they are unhappy with the election outcome.” Democrats were the most concerned with 90% saying so. 

Only 77% of Republicans were worried about extremists committing violence if they didn’t like the outcome of the 2024 election while 81% of Independents indicated the same feeling, but again, there were other more worrying findings. 

“The share of voters who cited fears that extremists will commit acts of violence after the election rose by 10 percentage points from 74% in a May poll to 84%,” Axios noted about the new findings from Reuters and Ipsos compared to previous findings from May 2024. 

Even more worrying than the previous finding was the discovery that 80% of registered voters thought that the country was “spiraling out of control.” This was a near-universal feeling among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. 

80% of Democrats and Independents noted that they felt the country was spiraling out of control while 81% of Republicans said the same. This alone is a concerning discovery but the polling data made many other startling findings. 

70% of Republicans thought the mainstream media was biased and should be punished compared to 31% of Democrats and 45% of Independents. When it came to concerns about the leadership of each political party, things got even more worrying based on the data.

57% of Republicans agreed that Democratic leadership was trying to damage the country and should be jailed while 55% of Democrats reported the same thing about Republican Party leadership. Independents stood at 30% and 29%, respectively. 

The polling data from Reuters and Ipsos not only revealed the significant concerns Americans are feeling in the wake of the assassination attempt against Trump, but they also discovered that many believe the former president’s life may have been saved by divine providence. 

In what may have been the most interesting finding of the poll, 34% of people said that they thought that Trump surviving the assassination attempt showed he “was favored by divine providence or God’s will.”

“The attempt on Trump's life has dominated media headlines and fueled discussion among some of his conservative Christian supporters that he was protected by God,” explained Jason Lange of Reuters.

Republicans were the biggest believers in the belief that God’s will favored Trump with 66% saying so compared to just 11% of Democrats and 29% of Republicans. However, this belief didn’t really help Trump beat out Joe Biden. 

Trump only held a minor 2-point lead with registered voters over Biden in the polling conducted by Reuters and Ipsos with 43% of the vote share compared to Biden’s 41%. 

While the findings from Reuters may seem worrying, there was a ray of hope that the news organization and market research firm found in their results—nearly all individuals from all spectrums of the political aisle were against political violence and its use. 

“While Americans said they feared violence, few condoned it. Just 5% of respondents said it was acceptable for someone in their political party to commit violence to achieve a political goal, down from 12% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll from June 2023.” Lange noted.

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