What changed: Researchers at the Centers for Violence Prevention at the University of California Davis reported a “broad decrease” in support for political violence from mid‑2025 to mid‑2026, according to an analysis published earlier this month.
“These findings are clear,” wrote Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Centers for Violence Prevention and an emergency medicine physician, in a news release for the analysis. “Entrapment in a spiral of escalating political violence is not inevitable in the United States. Those who promote political violence should recognize that they do not have the public’s support and that promoting violence may exact a political cost.”
Key findings they cite
According to the analysis, the share of respondents who strongly or very strongly agreed with any of three statements about conditions in the U.S. creating a potential need for political violence did not exceed 9% in 2026. Agreement fell on all three statements from 2025 to 2026, but only the decline for “Our American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it” was statistically significant (change −0.053; 95% CI −0.077, −0.030).
The analysis also reported a small but significant increase in agreement that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States” (change 0.044; 95% CI 0.023, 0.064), and essentially no change on “United States needs a civil war to set things right” (change 0.006; 95% CI −0.011, 0.024).
Who moved—and who didn’t
The analysis said support remained stronger on the political right than on the left. It reported that MAGA Republicans agreed more strongly in 2026 than in 2025 with all three statements about a potential need for violence (one of the three increases was statistically significant) and that their expectation of civil war rose significantly; it also noted increased agreement on a “need” for civil war. Among strong Democrats, agreement declined across all five statements, with two significant decreases on the items about a potential need for violence.
How to read this
These findings are presented as described in the UC Davis center’s analysis and its news release. The source text did not include underlying methods or full tables, so results and significance are summarized here as the analysis reported them.
