Will There Be Violence?

A short read on the 2026 midterms: Americans are fighting over whether the other side may govern at all, and the decisive days may fall after the vote. Links to the full, continuously updated report.

With the midterm elections upon us, one concern keeps coming up: Will there be violence? It’s a question we’re being asked almost daily. And the fact that we’re asking it at all says something about where America finds itself. We’ve moved beyond ordinary political disagreement into something more dangerous: a growing belief that the other side isn’t just wrong, but fundamentally illegitimate. When political opponents become existential enemies, the rules of democracy begin to feel optional. That’s the territory we’re now navigating. But what does the evidence actually tell us? Here’s the surprising part. Despite the increasingly hostile rhetoric, Americans appear less willing to engage in political violence than they were a year ago. A major 2026 survey found that 51 of 53 measures of support for or willingness to commit political violence had declined. Yet more Americans expect violence, and roughly one in three still believes it can be justified for at least one political objective. That’s a troubling contradiction. We’re increasingly afraid of something most of us don’t actually want to participate in. Meanwhile, social media amplifies the extremes, making a relatively small number of angry voices sound like an entire country on the brink. But the real story may be unfolding somewhere other than our feeds. While the public argues about who deserves to govern, a consequential struggle is taking place over who controls elections, which votes count, and who has the authority to certify the results. Federal efforts to intervene in state election processes have repeatedly met resistance from courts and election officials, including Republicans. That’s an important and underreported sign of institutional resilience. The greater risk may not be Election Day itself, but the weeks that follow, when contested results, legal challenges and certification deadlines converge. And the pace of events is accelerating. Just days before the election, a federal appeals court rejected a Justice Department effort to set aside ballots associated with roughly 20,000 California voters whose eligibility the government questioned. Another federal judge temporarily restricted federal agencies from threatening election workers with prosecution over how they process ballots. And on November 1, a judge dismissed a federal lawsuit seeking to prevent certification of a potentially contested Senate result in Alaska. These are not necessarily final resolutions of every underlying dispute, but they show just how much is being tested in real time. These legal battles now extend across multiple states, with some decisions still pending just hours before Election Day. The sheer pace and breadth of these disputes underscore how actively the boundaries of federal authority, state election administration and judicial oversight are being tested. The divisions don’t always follow party lines, either. Republican election officials have resisted federal demands, while prominent Democrats have crossed party lines in their endorsements. The parties may be deeply polarized, but they are hardly monolithic. Increasingly, the courts and the officials responsible for administering elections are where the country’s democratic guardrails are being tested. So will there be violence? We can’t predict that, and neither can anyone else. But perhaps we’re asking the wrong question, or at least asking it too late. Political violence doesn’t emerge from nowhere. It grows when people lose faith that the systems governing their lives can meet their needs, resolve conflicts or treat them fairly. The antidote isn’t simply less inflammatory rhetoric. It’s rebuilding our capacity to cooperate, starting in our own communities. Do people feel safe? Do they trust their neighbors and institutions? Can disagreements be resolved without turning one another into enemies? These aren’t abstract questions. They’re measurable indicators of whether a society is holding together. And ultimately, they’re where each of us has the greatest opportunity to make a difference. And that’s why our monitoring won’t end on Election Day. We’ll continue tracking developments in the days and weeks that follow, including how political leaders, institutions and their supporters respond to election results, legal challenges, certification disputes and actions taken by either side. In fact, the post-election period may prove more consequential than Election Day itself, as competing claims of legitimacy and institutional decisions create new opportunities for either escalation or de-escalation. This is a brief summary of a much more comprehensive research paper Mark and I have written, drawing on historical research, current analysis, and real-time data and intelligence. Our aim is not simply to explain what has happened, but to help people better understand what is happening now, what may be coming next, and where opportunities for constructive intervention may exist. Read our full, continuously updated report: https://consilience.is/blog/will-there-be-violence