AP-NORC Poll: GOP Optimism Drops After Kirk Killing

Republicans’ outlook on the direction of the country has declined noticeably, according to a new AP-NORC poll that was conducted shortly after last week’s assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk.

The share of Republicans who see the country headed in the right direction has fallen sharply in recent months, according to the September survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Today, only about half in the GOP see the nation on the right course, down from 70% in June. The shift is especially pronounced among Republican women and the party’s under-45 crowd.

Overall, about one-quarter of Americans say things in the country are headed in the right direction, down from about 4 in 10 in June. Democrats and independents didn’t shift meaningfully.

Interviews with Republicans who took the poll suggest that political violence and nagging worries about social discord are playing a role in the notable shift in their mood after a summer scarred by killings of figures on both sides of the political spectrum, although they also mentioned another array of worries, including jobs, household costs and crime.

“I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about the worsening political discourse and, now, the disturbing assassinations,” said Chris Bahr, a 42-year-old Republican from suburban Houston.
“If you’d have talked to me two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have brought it up as a main concern but more of a gnawing feeling,” the software administrator said. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. But now it’s violence, while before it was just this sense of animosity and division.”

An unusually sharp drop among Republicans

Views of the country’s direction tend to be fairly stable, but major events sometimes shake partisans’ feelings about the state of the country, even when their party is in power. Democrats, for example, were more likely to say the U.S. was headed the wrong way after the Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that established a federal right to abortion. Democrat Joe Biden was president.

The GOP’s decline in optimism, particularly among younger Republicans and women, is significant in size. The drop in Republicans who see the country headed in the right direction exceeds the decline seen between October and December 2020, following President Donald Trump’s reelection loss. It’s more similar in scope to the decline that occurred in the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among Republicans younger than 45, the decline is particularly strong: 61% say the country is headed in the wrong direction, a spike of 30 percentage points since June, the last time the question was asked.

Mostly, 42-year-old truck driver Mustafa Robinson, a Republican, is troubled by the cost of living, but he has been increasingly bothered by what he wishes was a stronger sense of national unity.
“It’s like, you think you’re heading in the right direction with your career and your job, but everything around you is going up in price. It seems like you can’t catch a break,” said Robinson, a married father of three who lives in Delaware County just southwest of Philadelphia. “But we are also supposed to be united as a country and coming together. And we are not. I’m so perplexed how we’re not on the same page about anything, so bad that these people are being shot.”

Some express concern about political violence

Kirk, who started the Arizona-based political organization Turning Point USA and had been a leader rallying young conservatives for Trump, died Sept. 10 after he was shot during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University.

On June 14, Democrat Melissa Hortman, Minnesota’s state House speaker, and her husband were shot to death in their suburban Minneapolis home in what authorities called an act of targeted political violence.

In April, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, his family and guests fled the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg after a man broke into the home and set a fire that caused significant damage. It happened during the Jewish holiday of Passover, and Shapiro is Jewish.

Last year, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during an election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot in the ear.

Worries about political violence aren’t new for many Americans. Last October, an AP-NORC poll found that 42% of U.S. adults were “extremely” or “very” concerned about the possibility of increased political violence directed at political figures or election officials in the aftermath of the presidential election.

Trump attributed Kirk’s killing to the “radical left” and said he was considering actions toward progressive groups in response. He and members of his administration have discussed measures such as classifying certain groups as domestic terrorists, pursuing racketeering investigations, and revoking tax-exempt status, though no link has been made to last week’s shooting.

The economy is also a factor for some

GOP women’s view of the nation’s course has shifted almost as much as younger Republicans’ view, according to the poll. About three-quarters of Republican women say the country is going in the wrong direction, up from 27% in June. By comparison, 56% of Republican men say the country is going the wrong way, up from 30% in June.

And not all of the people who think the U.S. is on a worrying trajectory have political violence at the top of their mind. Joclyn Yurchak, 55, from northeast Pennsylvania, ticked off a list of problems she feels have put the United States on a downward path.

Yurchak, a warehouse worker going back to school for business, says good jobs are harder to find and require longer commutes. She is bothered by illegal immigration, though she believes Trump has begun to make inroads, and worries about criminal drug activity in her area.

Asked about Kirk and other political targets, Yurchak attributed the episodes to a broader fraying of the nation’s social fabric.
“It’s all the violence, not just political. There’s just so much crime in the country. It’s disgusting,” said Yurchak. “Nobody has respect for anybody anymore. It’s sad.”

Like others, Minnesota Republican Jeremy Gieske first noted economic uncertainty as the chief reason for his wrong-track opinion, before circling back without prompting to what he called “all the political poison.”
“We’re at each other’s throats,” said the 47-year-old product manager from Rogers, just northwest of Minneapolis. “This viciousness on both sides. We have villainized others, like we’re on the brink of social collapse. Is Kirk the straw that breaks the camel’s back or sets off a powder keg? It’s on everyone’s mind.”