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      A candidate for local office in New York disappeared months ago. He could still win

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      A political candidate in the New York City suburbs went for a night swim in the Atlantic Ocean this past spring and never returned.Petros Krommidas’s phone, keys and clothes were found on the sands at Long Beach on Long Island. The 29-year-old former Ivy League rower, who was training for a triathlon, had parked his car just off the picturesque wooden boardwalk.As the months passed, local Democrats attempted to field a replacement to run for the seat in the Nassau County legislature.But two Republican voters took them to court and won: a state judge recently ordered Krommidas’s name to remain on the November ballot, ruling that he’s still considered missing and not officially deceased.Now, as election day approaches, voters in Long Beach and other communities on the south shore of Long Island have a curious choice: re-elect the Republican incumbent or the Democrat who seemingly vanished at sea.James Hodge is among those calling on residents to cast their ballots for Krommidas regardless – hoping to trigger a special election in which Democrats can put forward another candidate to run against Republican lawmaker Patrick Mullaney.The Long Beach resident worked with Krommidas at the Nassau county board of elections and had been tapped by Democrats to run in his place.“We need to stand by and honor his name and memory,” Hodge told the Associated Press. “Let’s give him that victory. It’s the right thing to do.”The Republican voters argued in their lawsuit that Democrats couldn’t claim Krommidas was dead because authorities still considered him a missing person. They pointed to a New York state law that someone is presumed dead after being “absent for a continuous period of three years”.A county judge, Gary Knobel, agreed, writing in his ruling last month that “‘missing person’ status does not qualify as a vacancy that can be filled”.The judge noted a similar situation decades earlier in Alaska.Nicholas Begich Sr, a congressman, disappeared in a plane crash weeks before the 1972 election but still won. The Alaska Democrat was eventually declared dead, and his Republican opponent claimed the seat in a special election.In 2000, the Democratic governor of Missouri, Mel Carnahan, died in a plane crash while campaigning for a seat in the US Senate. Although Carnahan was trailing in the polls when he died, he made a political comeback after his death and narrowly defeated his Republican opponent, John Ashcroft. Carnahan’s widow, Jean, was appointed to serve in the Senate until a special election in 2022, which she lost.More recently, Dennis Hof, owner of the Nevada brothel featured on HBO’s Cathouse documentary series, died weeks before a 2018 election but still captured a seat in the state legislature.In 2020, North Dakota legislative candidate David Andahl died from Covid-19 the month before the election and still won. And in 2022, Pennsylvania state lawmaker Anthony DeLuca won reelection despite dying from lymphoma the month prior.Hodge and other Long Island Democrats argue that Republicans only sued to assure themselves victory as they seek to bolster their majority in the county legislature. They say the lawsuit has only prolonged the anguish for Krommidas’s family.“I understand politics, but there’s a time to stop and be a human being,” said Ellen Lederer-DeFrancesco, who met Krommidas through the local Democratic Pparty. “Petros is someone’s son, brother, friend.”The Nassau county Republican committee chairperson, Joseph Cairo Jr, in a statement, vowed the party and its candidates will “show the highest level of sensitivity during these challenging times for the Krommidas family”.Krommidas’s family declined to comment when reached by phone, but his mother and sister both called for residents to “honor and vote” for him in recent Facebook posts.“My Peter cared deeply about people and his community and continues to inspire kindness and unity in our community,” his mother, Maria, wrote.Eleni-Lemonia Krommidas, his sister, described him in her own post as a first-generation American who loved his country and “believed in equality, education, and the power of unity”.In the days after his disappearance, family and friends joined first responders in scouring Long Beach’s broad swath of sand, which is located just east of the New York City borough of Queens.View image in fullscreenSome of the missing person fliers they put up with images of Krommidas’s youthful, smiling face are tattered and faded but still visible on telephone poles around Long Beach.Meanwhile campaign signs for Mullaney, his opponent, are prominently displayed on fences along the main thoroughfares and on tidy residential lawns. The Republican didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.Along the Long Beach boardwalk last week, longtime resident Maude Carione was dumbstruck at the choice facing voters in November.“It’s insane to leave his name on the ballot. You’ll confuse people,” said the 72-year-old Trump supporter, who didn’t have plans to vote in the upcoming local election. “In fairness, you have to give another candidate a chance for the Democrats. You have to.”For resident Regina Pecorella, the decision, while grim, was clear. “If it’s between those two, I’m voting for the person that’s alive,” said the 54-year old independent, who voted for a straight Republican ticket in the previous election. “I don’t know how else to answer that.”Guardian staff contributed reporting More

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      Trump news at a glance: President declares ‘peace in the Middle East’ despite many barriers remaining

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      “At long last, we have peace in the Middle East,” Donald Trump declared, as he and regional leaders signed a declaration meant to cement a ceasefire in Gaza. Analysts said however that a litany of thorny issues are unresolved, and many barriers to a lasting peace remain.The president made a lightning visit to Israel, where he lauded prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an address to parliament, and then Egypt, for a summit where he pledged to be a guarantor to the Gaza deal.As part of Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war, Hamas on Monday freed the last 20 surviving hostages it held after two years of captivity in Gaza. In exchange, Israel released 1,968 mostly Palestinian prisoners held in its jails, its prison service said.Much remains to be negotiated, among the most pressing sticking points Hamas’s refusal to disarm and Israel’s failure to pledge full withdrawal from the devastated territory.The US leader, however, repeatedly signalled he was confident the ceasefire will hold, saying at a joint appearance with Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in Sharm el-Sheikh that talks on the next steps of the plan had already “started, as far as we’re concerned”.Trump sets sights on peace with Iran as he hails ‘end of Gaza war’Donald Trump has vowed to use the power of his presidency to ensure that Israel recognises it has achieved “all that it can by force of arms”, and begin an age of cooperation in the Middle East that may ultimately extend as far as peace with Iran.In a speech to the Israeli Knesset, made hours after the last remaining Israeli hostages were released from Gaza, Trump hailed the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” and an end to the “long and painful nightmare” of the Gaza war.Read the full storyTrump plan to invite Netanyahu to Gaza summit abortedA last-minute plan by Donald Trump to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to a multinational Gaza summit in Egypt had to be aborted after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said he would not land his plane in Sharm el-Sheikh if the invitation stood.Read the full storyUS news outlets refuse to sign new Pentagon rules to report only official informationSeveral leading news organizations with access to Pentagon briefings have formally said they will not agree to a new defense department policy that requires them to pledge they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.The policy, presented last month by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been widely criticized by media organizations asked to sign the pledge by Tuesday at 5pm or have 24 hours to turn in their press credentials.Read the full storySenators dig in heels over government shutdownRepublican and Democratic senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly have dug their heels in over the government shutdown – which is now approaching two weeks, with the former saying that the closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands for a restoration of Obama-era healthcare subsidies.Read the full storyObama takes aim at companies cutting deals with TrumpBarack Obama took aim at institutions and businesses who made deals or worked out settlements with the Trump administration, noting on a new podcast episode: “We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand.”Read the full storyGrowing number of veterans face arrest over Ice protestsUS military veterans increasingly face arrest and injury amid protests over Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and his push to deploy national guard members to an ever-widening number of American cities. The Guardian has identified eight instances where military veterans have been prosecuted or sought damages after being detained by federal agents.Read the full storyFirings of hundreds of CDC employees reportedly reversedThe firings of hundreds of employees at the Centers for Disease Control have been reversed, according to several reports citing officials familiar with the matter, and the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo closed their doors in response to the ongoing government shutdown.

      Protesters rallying against the Trump administration in Portland put the city’s quirky reputation on display by pedaling through the streets wearing absolutely nothing.

      Global stock markets have edged higher and cryptocurrencies rebounded amid signs that a new front in the US-China trade war may not be as severe as first feared.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 12 October 2025. More

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      US news outlets refuse to sign new Pentagon rules to report only official information

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      Several leading news organizations with access to Pentagon briefings have formally said they will not agree to a new defense department policy that requires them to pledge they will not obtain unauthorized material and restricts access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.The policy, presented last month by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been widely criticized by media organizations asked to sign the pledge by Tuesday at 5pm or have 24 hours to turn in their press credentials.The move follows a shake-up in February in which long-credentialed media outlets were required to vacate assigned workspaces which was cast as an “annual media rotation program”. A similar plan was presented at the White House where some briefing room spots were given to podcasters and other representatives of non-traditional media.On Monday, the Washington Post joined the New York Times, CNN, the Atlantic, the Guardian and trade publication Breaking Defense in saying it would not sign on to the agreement.Matt Murray, the Post’s executive editor, said the policy runs counter to constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press.“The proposed restrictions undercut First Amendment protections by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information,” Murray wrote in a statement published on X. “We will continue to vigorously and fairly report on the policies and positions of the Pentagon and officials across the government.”The Atlantic, which became embroiled in a dispute with Pentagon and White House officials earlier this year after editor Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a group chat on Signal, said it “fundamentally” opposes the new restrictions.The new policy “constrains how journalists can report on the U.S. military, which is funded by nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars annually,” a New York Times statement said. “The public has a right to know how the government and military are operating,” wrote the Times Washington bureau chief, Richard Stevenson.Hegseth responded on social media to statements from the Atlantic, the Post and the Times by posting a single emoji of a hand waving goodbye.Righ-leaning outlets have also declined to sign the document. “Newsmax has no plans to sign the letter,” the network told the New York Times reporter Erik Wemple. “We are working in conjunction with other media outlets to resolve the situation. We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further.”Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told the Washington Post that media outlets had “decided to move the goal post”, saying that the policy doesn’t require reporters to agree, but just acknowledge they understand it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionParnell said that request had “caused reporters to have a full-blown meltdown, crying victim online.” He added: “We stand by our policy because it’s what’s best for our troops and the national security of this country.”The Pentagon Press Association, which represents the press corps covering the defense department, said last week that a revised policy that seeks to prohibit journalists from soliciting unauthorized information in addition to accessing it, appeared to be “designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs”.The PPA noted that the revised policy “conveys an unprecedented message of intimidation to everyone within the DoD, warning against any unapproved interactions with the press and even suggesting it’s criminal to speak without express permission – which plainly, it is not”.The new rules were accepted by the far-right cable channel One America News, whose White House correspondent is frequently invited by the president to ask him questions. One of the channel’s hosts, former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, said the pro-Trump outlet “is happy to follow these reasonable conditions”. More

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      Obama takes aim at companies cutting deals with Trump: ‘We have capacity to take a stand’

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      Barack Obama took aim at institutions and businesses who made deals or worked out settlements with the Trump administration, noting on a new podcast episode: “We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand.”In a talk with Marc Maron on the comedian’s last edition of his long-running WTF With Marc Maron, the former US president said institutions – including law firms, universities and businesses – that have changed course during the Trump administration should have stood by their convictions.Instead of bending to the administration, Obama noted that universities should say: “This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for. Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”He also noted that the organizations that did concede to Trump should be able to say: “We’re not going to be bullied into saying that we can only hire people or promote people based on some criteria that’s been cooked up by Steve Miller,” in reference to the top White House aide and architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy.Obama, whose two terms preceded the first Trump administration, also said that companies should also have stood up against administration pressure campaign to turn back from diversity hiring.“We think it’s important, because of what this country is, to hire people from different backgrounds,” Obama said.Universities, law firms and other businesses have all reached agreements with the White House, including dropping DEI targets and agreeing to rein in campus antisemitism in exchange for restoration of federal funding. A series of powerful Washington law firms have also agreed to provide free legal services to the administration, while corporations have rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Disney, a frequent target of political-ideological factions on the left and right, scrapped its internal “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” program for “Opportunity & Inclusion” to empower “all through access, opportunity, and a culture of belonging”.Elsewhere in the interview, Obama acknowledged that integrity comes at a price.“Sometimes it’s going to be uncomfortable,” he told Maron, referencing a joke that Maron made in his stand-up routine that Democrats annoyed the average American into fascism.“It cracked me up,” Obama said. “I wasn’t as funny about saying this, but four or five years ago I said: ‘Look, you can’t just be a scold all the time. You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging you’ve got some blind spots, too.’”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVulnerability, he said, comes in standing up for core convictions but not attempting to assert “that I am so righteous, and so pure, and so insightful, that there isn’t the possibility I’m wrong on this.“There was this weird progressive language,” he said, that implied a “holier than thou superiority that’s not different to what we used to joke about coming from the right and the moral majority … and certain fundamentalism that I think was dangerous”.Maron posted the final episode of his show on Monday after 16 years of hosting and with more than 1,600 installments that he’s broadcast from his Los Angeles garage. Obama brought the 62-year-old host, stand-up comic and actor to his Washington office for the last interview.Obama asked the initial questions. “How are you feeling about this whole thing?” he said, “transition, moving on from this thing that has been one of the defining parts of your career and your life?”“I feel OK,” Maron answered. “I feel like I’m sort of ready for the break, but there is sort of a fear there, of what do I do now? I’m busy. But, not unlike your job … I’ve got a lot of people who over the last 16 years have grown to rely on me.” More

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      Majority of special education staff in US education department laid off – report

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      The majority of staff in the education department handling special education has been laid off, according to multiple reports.Friday’s total of 466 layoffs across the education department also impacted the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which oversees programs that support millions of children and adults with disabilities nationwide, according to sources speaking to various outlets.“Despite extensive efforts to minimize impact on employees and programs during the ongoing government shutdown, the continued lapse in funding has made it necessary to implement the RIF (reduction in force),” according to a letter issued to workers that CNN reviewed.The Guardian has contacted the education department for comment.One department employee told NPR: “This is decimating the office responsible for safeguarding the rights of infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSimilarly, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education said that if the layoffs are true, “there is significant risk that not only will federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of free and proper education, K-12 Dive reports.Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, told the outlet: “The rumored near elimination of the Office for Special Education Programs is absolutely devastating to the education of people with disabilities.”“Eliminating federal capacity to support Idea is harmful to people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them, and it runs counter to everything our members work toward every day,” Rummel added, referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act which ensures a free and appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the country.In March, the education department announced layoffs of 1,300 employees, or nearly 50% of the department’s workforce, which the education secretary Linda McMahon described as a “significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system”. More

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      Republican and Democratic senators dig in heels over government shutdown

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      Republican and Democratic senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly have dug their heels in over the government shutdown – which is now approaching two weeks, with the former saying that the closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands for a restoration of Obama-era healthcare subsidies.Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he was in favor of the Senate voting to reopen the government and prepared to “have a rational discussion” with Democrats – but not with the government shut down.“I’m willing to vote to open the government up tomorrow,” Graham said. “To my Democratic friends: I am not going to vote to extend these subsidies.”Graham, speaking to Democrats, added: “It’s up to you. If you want to keep it shut down, fine. It’s not going to change how I approach healthcare.”The senator’s comments came as Vice-President JD Vance warned that permanent cuts to the federal workforce will only get “deeper” as the shutdown continues.Vance told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures that “the longer it goes on, Maria, the more significant they’re going to be. If you remember, we went nine days before announcing any significant layoffs.“The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be,” Vance continued.More than 4,000 federal workers have so far been identified for job terminations. The Senate has voted multiple times over the last two weeks on a stopgap funding measure but not enough Democrats have joined the proposal to reach a 60-vote threshold.Graham’s comments may indicate a hardening approach to negotiations over healthcare subsidies with or without a functioning government.“The subsidies we’re talking about here,” Graham told NBC. “If the (Obama’s) Affordable Care Act is so affordable, why, every time I turn around, are we spending $350 billion to keep it afloat?”The dispute on the network continued with Arizona senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, criticizing Republicans for refusing to negotiate with Democrats.“We need a real negotiation, and we need a fix. We need this corrected for the American people. This is for so many people – their healthcare is running towards a cliff, and if we don’t fix this, it’s going to go right over it,” Kelly told host Kristen Welker on Meet the Press.Against increasing pressure to reach a deal, with both sides weighing the political cost of a lack of a resolution, House speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday that Republicans had “probably a hundred different ideas about how to fix it but we can’t do that overnight”.He said Democrats’ demands for a resolution to the healthcare subsidies issue without lengthy discussions were “impossible and inappropriate”.“It’s not a deliverable and they know it,” Johnson said. “They chose that issue because they thought it would sell well to the public and it would show they were fighting Trump. It’s all a big facade and I’m so frustrated by it.” More

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      The populist playbook: Democratic US Senate candidate seeks to replicate Mamdani’s success

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      During Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s Fight the Oligarchy tour stop in Michigan, Democratic US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed hit on bold populist policies like Medicare For All and taxing the rich.But he drew among the loudest cheers from the crowd in Kalamazoo, when he bellowed his updated reversal of an Obama catchphrase that signified a new pugilistic tactic when dealing with Maga attacks. “When they go low, we don’t go high. We take them to the mud and choke them out,” he said.El-Sayed’s fiery speech and his populist campaign in Michigan’s Democratic primary for the Senate race comes on the heels of Zohran Mamdani’s stunning June win in New York City’s mayoral primary, which has generated momentum on the left-wing of the party.The Sanders-endorsed, anti-establishment El-Sayed, 40, follows a similar blueprint as Mamdani, and Michigan in some ways offers favorable terrain for the leftwing populist playbook. But at the same time a repeat of Mamdani’s success in the more conservative, upper midwest swing state is far from certain, and the race is viewed as a possible bellwether on leftists’ electability in statewide campaigns across the US.“This is a time when that call for new politics is resonating beyond the places one would expect it to resonate, like in the far reaches of Michigan’s rural communities,” said Yousef Rabhi, a former Michigan House Democratic floor leader who has endorsed El-Sayed. “Abdul and Mamdani are speaking to this moment.”Like Mamdani, El-Sayed eschews partisanship in favor of leftwing populist economic ideas, sharply criticizes Israel, and leans heavily on a sense of authenticity. In New York City, that formula resonated with younger people, activated disaffected voters and attracted support for Mamdani from across the political spectrum. Mamdani remains strongly ahead in the New York mayoral raceUsing that style in Michigan is a break from the moderate Democratic politics that for decades have dominated in the state, and which defeated El-Sayed in 2018 when he lost to now governor Gretchen Whitmer in a gubernatorial Democratic primary.But since then, El-Sayed has run health departments in Detroit and Wayne county, and touts accomplishments like helping to eliminate $700m in medical debt for local residents.The economic playing field has also shifted since 2018, and El-Sayed thinks his message is more likely to resonate now than seven years ago. “People now understand Donald Trump was not the cause, but the symptom,” he said during an interview with the Guardian at a Detroit coffee shop.Moreover, Democratic voters’ frustration with the party is near all time highs, and the left believes there is appetite for outsider candidates, populist economics and criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza. It has boosted El-Sayed, especially in a state that’s home to the uncommitted movement and large Arab-American and Muslim populations.But there are some crucial differences between El-Sayed’s and Mamdani’s races.El-Sayed’s opponents are not damaged like Mamdani’s main competitors, mayor Eric Adams and former New York governor Andrew Cuomo. In the August 2026 primary election, El-Sayed faces US congresswoman Haley Stevens, and state senator Mallory McMorrow. The latter is similarly young and critical of party leadership, and has styled herself as an outsider. But McMorrow largely shares the establishment’s economic policy positions and brought on political insiders, like controversial former Cuomo consultant Lis Smith.Educated, middle-class voters who wanted to vote for an outsider were key to Mamdani’s win. El-Sayed also needs those votes, but they may be split among him and McMorrow, even if the two candidates have substantially different policies and El-Sayed is more truly an outsider, said Josh Cohen, a progressive political analyst who writes the Ettingermentum newsletter.“The race is not the ideal feel and circumstance in the way that New York was for Mamdani,” Cohen said. An El-Sayed win would suggest voters are concerned with policy, he added. “It would be a very meaningful sign that people’s desire for a shift isn’t superficial.”Another key difference between McMorrow and El-Sayed lies in Israel policy. El-Sayed calls for an end to “blank check” military aid to Israel and other countries, and uses the term “genocide”. McMorrow, by contrast, has tried to walk a tightrope, calling for humanitarian relief while not using the term “genocide” until October.El-Sayed’s populist economic proposals include a ban on tax incentives for companies like Amazon, new taxes for billionaires, the elimination of medical debt and a strengthening of anti-monopoly laws to address corporate price gouging.Though those are leftist ideas, El-Sayed said he avoids the “left-right” label, which might help thread a needle in places like the rural, conservative upper peninsula. Financial pain and its cause are the same everywhere, El-Sayed added, so his focus is on the economic divide, not the cultural or political one.“It’s the divide between the people who have been locked out and those doing the locking out,” he said. He added that his solutions have broad appeal no matter what they are labeled, and that explains why some Trump voters surprisingly show up for “a guy named Abdul”.“They didn’t vote for Donald Trump out of a sense of hate for Muslims. They voted for him because of a sense of frustration with the way the system has locked them out,” El-Sayed said. Indeed, the Trump-to-Mamdani voter was a key piece of the story in New York City.But Mamdani also had built-in help from politically aligned groups who in recent years laid dow campaign and issue infrastructure that was key to his win. No such infrastructure to push these ideas exists in Michigan.Even if El-Sayed wins the primary, Republicans will try to make the general election about social wedge issues instead of economics, said Jared Abbott, a political scientist and director of the Center for Working Class Politics.Mamdani and El-Sayed have so far been “very disciplined” in focusing on the “working class’s bread and butter economic issues”, Abbott added, and that would be essential to his overcoming GOP general election attacks.A win in the general could have an outsize impact on national politics – just as the Squad members’ 2018 midterm wins reverberated into the presidential primary and Biden’s domestic policy, El-Sayed’s election in a swing state could help pull the 2028 presidential race and next president to the left.“It would be a massive proof of concept that progressives do not [currently] have,” Abbott said. More

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      Far fewer Americans support political violence than recent polls suggest

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      A series of recent events has sparked alarm about rising levels of political violence in the U.S. These episodes include the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025; the murder of a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and her husband in June 2025; and two attempts to kill Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

      Some surveys have reported that a large number of Americans are willing to support the use of force for political ends, or they believe that political violence may sometimes be justified.

      My research is in political science and data analytics. I have conducted surveys for almost 25 years. For the past three years, I have studied new techniques that leverage artificial intelligence to conduct and analyze interviews.

      My own recent surveys, which use AI to ask people about why they give their answers, show that the surprisingly high level of support in response to these questions is likely the result of confusion about what these questions are asking, not actual support for political violence.

      Law enforcement officials lead a procession as pallbearers carry caskets after a funeral ceremony for Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, on June 28, 2025, in Minneapolis.
      Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

      A failure to communicate

      Why would multiple surveys get the answers to this important question wrong? I believe the cause is an issue called response error. It means that respondents don’t interpret a question in the way the researcher thinks they will.

      As a result, the answers people provide don’t really reflect what the researcher thinks the answers show.

      For example, asking whether someone would support the use of force to achieve a political goal raises the question of what the respondent thinks “use of force” means in this context. It could be interpreted as violence, but it could also be interpreted as using legal means to “force” someone to do something.

      Such response errors have been a concern for pollsters ever since survey research began. They can affect even seemingly straightforward questions.

      What did you mean by that?

      To avoid this problem, I used an AI interviewing system developed by CloudResearch, a well-known survey research company, to ask respondents some of the same questions about political violence from previous surveys. Then I used it to ask what they were thinking when they answered those questions. This process is called cognitive interviewing.

      I then used AI to go through these interviews and categorize them. Two short reports that summarize this process as applied to both polls are available online. These analyses have not been peer-reviewed, and the results should be considered very preliminary.

      Nonetheless, the results clearly demonstrate that respondents interpret these questions in very different ways.

      Nuance matters

      For example, in my survey, about 33% of Democrats agreed with the statement that “use of force is justified to remove President Trump from office.” However, when asked why they agreed, more than 57% gave responses like this: “I was not thinking physically but more in the sense that he – the president – might need to be ‘fired’ or forced out of office due to rules or laws.” Still others were envisioning future scenarios where a president illegally seizes power in a coup.

      Once you account for these different interpretations of the question, the AI only coded about 8% of Democrats as supporting use of force in violent terms under current conditions.

      Even here, there was substantial ambiguity – for example, this type of response was not unusual: “The language ‘use of force’ was a bit too broad for me. I could not justify killing Trump, for example, but less extreme uses of force were valid in my eyes.”

      Similarly, 29% of Republicans agreed that “use of the military is justified to stop protests against President Trump’s agenda.” However, almost all of the respondents who agreed with this statement envisioned the National Guard interceding nonviolently to stop violent protests and riots. Only about 2.6% of Republicans gave comments supporting use of the military against nonviolent protests.

      Almost all those who agreed that use of the military was justified expressed thoughts like this: “I see the military coming and acting as a police force to stop or prevent the demonstrations that become violent. Peaceful protesters must be allowed to exercise their right to free speech.”

      People prepare to march in a ‘No Kings’ protest against Trump administration policies in New York City on June 14, 2025.
      Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

      When is political violence justified?

      Even questions that explicitly ask about political violence are open to wide interpretation. Take, for example, this question: “Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?”

      The lack of a specific scenario or location in this question invites respondents to engage in all kinds of philosophical and historical speculation.

      In my survey, almost 15% of respondents said violence could sometimes be justified. When asked about the examples they were thinking of, respondents cited the American Revolution, the anti-Nazi French Resistance and many other incidents as a reason for their responses. Only about 3% of respondents said they were thinking about actions in the U.S. at the current time.

      Moreover, almost all respondents stated that violence should be a last resort when all other peaceful and legal methods fail.

      One respondent illustrated both problems with one sentence: “The (American) colonists tried petitions and negotiations first, but, when those efforts failed, they resorted to armed conflict to gain independence.”

      A call for understanding

      Even these numbers likely overestimate Americans’ support for political violence. I read the interviews, checking the AI system’s labeling, and concluded that, if anything, it was overestimating support for violence.

      Other factors may also be distorting reports of public support for political violence. Many surveys are conducted primarily online. One study estimated that anywhere from 4% to 7% of respondents in online surveys are “bogus respondents” who are selecting arbitrary responses. Another study reported that such respondents dramatically increase positive responses on questions about political violence.

      Respondents may also be willing to espouse attitudes anonymously online that they would never say or do in real life. Studies have suggested that “online disinhibition effects” or “survey trolling” can impact survey results.

      In sum, my preliminary research suggests that response error is a substantial problem in surveys about political violence.

      Americans almost universally condemn the recent political violence they have witnessed. The recent poll results showing otherwise more likely stem from confusion about what the questions are asking than actual support for political violence. More