New poll: Most Americans believe Trump faces greater assassination risk than other recent presidents

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now say President Donald Trump faces a higher risk of assassination than other recent presidents, a finding that lands weeks after a California teacher allegedly tried to shoot him at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

The Economist/YouGov survey, conducted May 1, 4 among 1,573 U.S. adult citizens, asked a blunt question: "Do you think President Trump is more or less at risk of assassination than other recent presidents?" Sixty-four percent answered "more risk." Just 6 percent said he faces less danger.

The numbers cut across party lines, and that is the part worth paying attention to.

The partisan breakdown

Among Republicans, 81 percent said Trump is at greater risk. Sixty-three percent of independents agreed. Even 46 percent of Democrats, nearly half, conceded the same point.

Forty-two percent of Democrats said Trump faces "about the same" risk as other recent presidents, and 11 percent said he is less at risk. Among independents and Republicans alike, only 4 percent chose the "less at risk" option.

The survey also sliced results by 2024 vote. Among those who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris, 46 percent said Trump faces about the same risk as other recent presidents. But 45 percent of Harris voters said he faces a greater risk, a near-even split that suggests even many of the president's opponents recognize the threat environment around him is not normal.

Rhetoric and responsibility

Half of all respondents said rhetoric from Trump's political opponents bears at least some responsibility for the assassination attempts against him. Thirty-one percent said that rhetoric is responsible "a great deal."

Fifty-five percent of Democrats said the opponents' rhetoric bears no responsibility at all. That gap, between a country that broadly sees a connection between heated political language and political violence, and a Democratic base that largely rejects the link, is one of the sharpest divides the survey captured.

The margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percent.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed that divide head-on at a press conference following the most recent alleged attempt on Trump's life. She pointed to the suspect's own writings and challenged reporters to compare them with everyday political discourse.

"When you read the manifesto of this shooter, ask yourselves, 'How different is the rhetoric from this almost-assassin than what you read on social media and hear in various forums every single day?'"

Leavitt did not leave the question hanging. She followed with a second statement that left little room for ambiguity.

"The answer, if you're being honest with yourself, is that there is no difference at all."

The press secretary also said Trump has dealt with 11 years of smears that have contributed to the climate producing these attacks. Whether one agrees with the scope of that claim or not, the poll numbers suggest a majority of the country sees something real in it.

What prosecutors say about the WHCA dinner attempt

The survey arrived weeks after the thwarted assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Federal prosecutors identified the suspect as Cole Allen, a California teacher who was arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate the president.

Before the attempted shooting, Allen took a selfie and penned a manifesto detailing his intentions. Federal prosecutors said he "scheduled those emails to be sent to specific people at approximately 8:30 p.m.", before the Secret Service engaged with him.

Allen's manifesto, as described in court filings, called Trump a "p*******e, rapist, and traitor." He wrote that he would go through "most everyone here to get to the targets if it were absolutely necessary." He deemed attendees at the dinner "complicit." The manifesto reportedly made an exception for FBI Director Kash Patel among Trump administration officials.

While Allen allegedly said crowd members were not his targets, the language of his own writings told a different story, one in which bystanders were expendable if they stood between him and the people he wanted to harm. That is not the language of a lone eccentric. It reads like the logical endpoint of years of rhetoric that treats political opponents as existential threats to the republic.

Trump's political influence continues to shape contests across the country, from his endorsement of Rep. Andy Barr in the Kentucky Senate race to broader fights over the direction of the Republican Party.

A pattern the country can see

The Economist/YouGov poll did not arrive in a vacuum. The question itself, whether this president is at more risk than others, would have seemed alarmist a decade ago. Now it reads as a matter of observable fact to most of the country.

That 64 percent figure is not driven solely by Republican partisans rallying around their president. Independents see it. A near-majority of Democrats see it. Even Harris voters are split almost evenly.

The debate over political rhetoric and its consequences is not new, and both sides have traded accusations for years. But the pattern around Trump is distinct. The survey measured public perception of a concrete, repeated threat, not a hypothetical one.

Meanwhile, internal GOP dynamics remain a live issue. Trump recently put six House Republicans on notice after they sided with Democrats on tariff policy, a reminder that the president's political battles extend well beyond personal safety.

Leavitt's challenge to reporters, to compare the suspect's manifesto with the daily drumbeat of anti-Trump rhetoric online and in mainstream forums, was pointed. It was also, based on the poll numbers, a challenge that resonated with a public already drawing that connection on its own.

The broader political landscape continues to shift around these fault lines. A Virginia Supreme Court ruling voiding Democratic redistricting maps recently underscored how aggressively both parties fight for institutional advantage, fights that only intensify the temperature of national politics.

The open questions from the WHCA dinner incident remain significant. The exact charges and statutes in Allen's case, whether anyone was injured, and the full scope of his planned attack are details that will emerge as the prosecution moves forward. What the public already knows was enough to move the needle on a national survey.

What the numbers demand

Polls measure perception, not policy. But when nearly two-thirds of the country agrees that the sitting president faces an elevated assassination risk, that is not a polling curiosity. It is a national security fact that demands a response from every institution responsible for protecting the president, and from every political leader whose rhetoric shapes the environment around him.

The 55 percent of Democrats who say anti-Trump rhetoric bears no responsibility for assassination attempts may believe that sincerely. But sincerity does not make them right. A California teacher read the same rhetoric, absorbed it, wrote a manifesto soaked in it, and allegedly showed up with a weapon.

The country, by a wide margin, has connected those dots. Trump's political reach keeps reshaping races and institutions across the country. The question now is whether the people who set the tone of our political discourse will reckon with what that tone has already produced, or keep pretending it has nothing to do with them.

When the public sees something this clearly, the only people still arguing are the ones who don't want to look.