Millions of Americans believe force justified to restore Trump to White House, University of Chicago study finds
CBSN
More than 18 months after the rioting at the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, an estimated 13 million U.S. adults, or 5% of the adult population, agree that force would be justified to restore former President Donald Trump to the White House and an estimated 15 million Americans believe force would be justified to prevent Trump from being prosecuted , should he be indicted for mishandling classified documents, according to a new study from the University of Chicago.
"We have not just a political threat to our democracy, we have a violent threat to our democracy," Dr. Robert Pape, the director of the University of Chicago's Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) told "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan on Sept. 18. "Today, there are millions of individuals who don't just think the election was stolen in 2020; they support violence to restore Donald Trump to the White House."
The 13 million estimated in the early September survey represents a reduction since June 2021, when an estimated 23 million Americans had insurrectionist sentiment. CPOST researchers extrapolated data from over 3,000 nationally representative survey participants who responded to surveys in June and September of 2021, and April and September of 2022, to reach their conclusions in the study.
