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Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Polls do not show that most U.S. adults think violence against leaders is acceptable.

YouGov poll, conducted Sept. 10: 11% said violence can sometimes be justified to achieve political goals; the figure was 24% among very liberal respondents.

PRRI International, August-September 2024: 18% (29% of Republicans) said “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”

University of Chicago, June 2024: 10% said use of force was justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.

University of California, Davis, May-June 2024: 26% said violence was usually or always justified to advance at least one political objective.

The most-Americans claim was made by Republican Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, discussing conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Vos cited Rutgers University poll results published in April: 56% self-identifying as left of center said the murder of Trump would be at least somewhat justified. 

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

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Tom Kertscher joined Wisconsin Watch as a full-time reporter in October 2024. He started as a fact checker in January 2023 and contributes to our collaboration with the The Gigafact Project to fight misinformation online. Kertscher is a former longtime newspaper reporter, including at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He is a contributing writer for Milwaukee Magazine and sports freelancer for The Associated Press.