How many Democratic and Republican politicians have been attacked since 2016?
Executive summary
There is no single, authoritative tally in the reporting provided that counts every “attack” on Democratic and Republican politicians since 2016; available sources document a sharp rise in threats and a catalogue of high‑profile violent incidents that affected both parties, with threats numbering in the thousands and dozens of confirmed assaults, arsons and shootings described in the press [1] [2] [3]. Any precise numeric answer requires a comprehensive dataset that the supplied reporting does not offer; the record instead establishes a clear trend: political violence and threats escalated markedly after 2016 and have struck members of both parties [4] [5].
1. What the sources actually measure — threats versus violent attacks
Multiple sources distinguish between threats (communications, menacing phone calls, online messages) and kinetic attacks (shootings, arson, bombings); the most concrete aggregate figure in the material is a jump in recorded threats to lawmakers from roughly 902 incidents in 2016 to about 9,625 in 2021 — a near tenfold increase that is repeatedly cited in reporting and analysis [1] [6]. By contrast, narrative accounts and timelines assembled by news outlets catalogue dozens of violent incidents — from the 2017 congressional baseball shooting that critically wounded Republican Rep. Steve Scalise to arson attacks, assassinations and targeted shootings affecting both parties — but do not add up to a single, verified party-by-party total [3] [5] [2].
2. High‑profile violent incidents that affected Republicans and Democrats
Since 2016 the record of specific violent attacks includes cases affecting Republicans (the 2017 shooting at the congressional baseball practice that injured then‑House Majority Whip Steve Scalise; plots and arson at GOP offices) and Democrats (the long‑running aftermath and threats related to the 2011 Gabby Giffords shooting noted in historical context, the 2025 murder of Minnesota Democratic leader Melissa Hortman, the 2025 arson at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence and shootings of Democratic state legislators), demonstrating that both parties have experienced deadly or near‑deadly violence in the recent period [3] [5] [2] [7] [8]. Reports also list attacks on party offices and campaign sites for both Democrats and Republicans [2] [9].
3. Who the perpetrators have been, and what the data implies about asymmetry
Analysts and government reports included in the sample emphasize that much of the surge in politically motivated violence since 2016 has been driven by right‑wing extremists and post‑2016 radicalization dynamics — for example, research cited by think tanks and the Journal of Democracy points to rising support for violence among some Republican‑leaning cohorts and a stronger alignment of right‑wing violent actors with election‑cycle grievance narratives [4] [10] [11]. Still, sources also document left‑wing incidents and make clear that both sides have been targeted and that partisan leaders across the spectrum have condemned attacks [11] [3].
4. Why a definitive count is not supported by the reporting provided
The assembled sources offer snapshots, exemplars and trend metrics (threat counts, selected incident timelines, qualitative analyses) but no comprehensive, validated dataset enumerating every assault, attempted assassination, arson, or physical attack on elected officials separated by party since 2016; press compilations explicitly call their lists “not exhaustive,” and academic and government pieces focus on patterns rather than a line‑by‑line accounting [3] [4] [12]. Thus, the evidence supports confident statements about a large increase in threats and dozens of violent episodes affecting both parties, but does not support a single authoritative numeric split of “how many Democrats versus Republicans were attacked” across the full period [1] [2].
5. Practical takeaway and research path to a numeric answer
To produce the precise party‑by‑party counts the question seeks would require compiling law‑enforcement incident reports, congressional and state office security logs, and validated media databases from 2016 to the present — a task beyond the scope of the sources provided here. Based on the reporting, the best-supported conclusions are: threats to lawmakers exploded into the thousands (902 → ~9,625 in cited samples) and high‑profile lethal and nonlethal attacks since 2016 have struck members of both parties, with independent analyses flagging a disproportionate role for right‑wing actors in the recent surge but not excluding violent acts by or against the left [1] [6] [4] [11] [2]. Exact counts remain an open empirical question requiring primary‑source aggregation [3] [9].