Which party has been associated with the most violent incidents in 2024?
Executive summary
Available reporting and analyses indicate that most sources identify right-wing or far-right actors as responsible for the bulk of politically motivated, extremist violence in and around 2024; multiple studies and news outlets cite right‑wing or white‑supremacist threats as the “most persistent and lethal” or “vastly more prevalent” source of such violence [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, several outlets document violent incidents and threats tied to actors across the political spectrum — including attacks on both Democratic and Republican offices and threats from individuals with mixed or nonpartisan histories — so the picture includes notable exceptions and lone‑actor variation [4] [5] [6].
1. What the major data and expert assessments say: right‑wing violence leads
Independent analyses and expert summaries published after 2024 conclude that politically motivated violence in the United States has been dominated by right‑wing actors. The Journal of Democracy states that “actual incidents of political violence, while rising on both sides, have been vastly more prevalent on the right,” citing government and independent counts [2]. Similarly, international and U.S. government‑focused reporting and expert commentary describe racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists (often coded as white supremacists or far‑right) as the most persistent lethal domestic threat [5] [1]. PBS’s later analysis also treats right‑wing extremist violence as a central driver of the recent rise in deadly and frequent political violence [3].
2. Quantitative snapshots and incident tallies: limitations and findings
News organizations and research groups compiled incident counts showing substantive increases in politically motivated incidents during the 2024 cycle. Reuters identified hundreds of political‑violence incidents across multiple years and noted a marked rise tied to the polarized climate around 2024 [7] [8]. Princeton’s Bridging Divides Initiative and other trackers recorded large numbers of threats and harassment incidents against local officials in 2024, underscoring broad hostility though not every entry is attributed to a specific partisan cohort [9] [10]. Academic work using ACLED and survey data cautions that event counts and trends can be sensitive to definitions and time windows; one study noted ACLED reported “no increase as of September 8, 2024” while other ACLED analyses emphasized substantial risk from right‑wing groups [11].
3. High‑profile violent acts and the role of lone actors
High‑profile attacks in 2024 — including assassination attempts and shootings — received broad coverage and complicate neat partisan tallies. Some of these attacks targeted high‑profile conservatives (including two attempts on former President Trump in 2024, per multiple reports) and others involved assailants whose party registration or political history was mixed, which tempers any exclusive assignment to one party [5] [4]. The Guardian and other outlets warned that lone actors remain a major threat, even if organized far‑right networks account for many planned violent events [12].
4. Violence against party offices and cross‑partisan incidents
Reporting shows both Republican and Democratic party offices were targeted in 2024 and its aftermath. Anadolu and other compendia list shootings and arson at party offices across states — for example, repeated attacks on a Democratic office in Tempe and arson at New Mexico GOP headquarters after 2024 — showing that attacks have hit both parties [4] [5]. This cross‑partisan damage reflects how political violence can be diffuse, opportunistic, or symbolic rather than always direct partisan retaliation.
5. Competing interpretations and political framing
Different outlets and analysts frame the causes and culpability differently: some emphasize a structural trend of far‑right radicalization and historical continuity with January 6 (the Journal of Democracy, Brookings, Crisis Group), while others stress unpredictable lone actors, social media amplification, and reciprocal threats from across the spectrum [1] [5] [12]. Political actors also dispute narratives: as Crisis Group documents, conservatives sometimes attribute attacks on right‑leaning figures to Democratic rhetoric, illustrating how explanations for violence can be used for partisan advantage [5].
6. What the available sources do not settle
Available sources do not provide a single, definitive, fully comparable dataset that assigns every violent incident of 2024 to a party label with uniform methodology — trackers differ in definitions, time ranges and inclusion criteria [11] [9]. Therefore, while multiple authoritative sources conclude that right‑wing actors accounted for a disproportionate share of politically motivated extremist violence, event‑level tallies also record significant cross‑partisan attacks and high‑profile exceptions that complicate absolute statements about “which party” in every case [2] [4].
Conclusion: The preponderance of expert assessments and aggregated counts in the available reporting point to right‑wing and far‑right extremists as the principal source of organized and lethal political violence in and around 2024, but many high‑profile incidents involved lone actors or attackers with mixed affiliations, and both party infrastructures and officials from both sides were targeted — making a nuanced, evidence‑based answer necessary [2] [5] [4].