A University of Chicago researcher says nearly half of self-identified Democrats now back using force to keep President Trump out of office, a number that has jolted political circles nationwide.
Story Snapshot
- Political scientist Robert Pape reports a new Chicago Project on Security and Threats survey found 44% of self-identified Democrats support using force to prevent Trump from serving as president.
- The same survey found roughly 25% of all American adults hold that view, according to reporting on Pape’s findings.
- Separate, related polling this fall found majorities of Democrats open to a military coup or other extreme measures against Trump.
- Researchers note that survey wording heavily shapes these numbers, and past CPOST results have shifted depending on how questions are phrased.
What The New Survey Actually Found
Robert Pape, who runs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, told reporters his latest survey found 44% of self-identified Democrats support using force to stop Trump from being president. He put the broader adult population figure at about 25%, meaning tens of millions of Americans now say force is justified against a sitting president.
Other outlets covering the same survey repeated the identical 44% figure among Democrats, describing it as support for using force to keep Trump from the presidency.
This is not Pape’s first alarming number. In September 2025, he told CBS News that 39% of Democrats agreed force was justified to remove Trump from office, and when researchers pressed further, 55% of those respondents said they meant lethal force, including assassination. That earlier figure already showed a troubling trend before this new 44% reading pushed it even higher.
A quarter of American adults — including 44% of self-identified Democrats — say they support the use of force to prevent President Donald Trump from being president, according to a new survey's findings described by University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape.…
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) September 28, 2026
Why The Numbers Keep Moving Around
Support for political violence is not a fixed fact you can just look up. Peer-reviewed research on polling methods shows it swings hard based on how a question is worded. One study found responses to a use-of-force question about Trump varied widely depending on subtle changes in phrasing.
A separate Ohio State survey found about 33% of Democrats agreed force was justified to remove Trump, but more than half of those respondents clarified they meant it metaphorically, not literally.
That gap matters. A respondent picturing a ballot box protest and a respondent picturing an armed uprising can both technically answer “yes” to the same survey question.
Pape’s team has built its wording over years of testing specifically to isolate genuine support for physical force, which is part of why his numbers draw so much attention compared to vaguer polls asking about “violence” in general terms.
A Broader Pattern Of Alarming Democrat Polling
The 44% figure did not appear in isolation. Days earlier, a separate poll from the progressive-aligned Center for Strategic Politics and Liberal Currents found 59% of Democrats would feel positive if military leaders removed Trump from office and seized control of government, according to the New York Post’s coverage of that survey.
The same poll found 72% of Democrats would either support or express no objection to a military coup framed as “safeguarding the Constitution.”
Pew Research separately found 85% of Americans, across party lines, believe politically motivated violence is rising in this country, with Democrats more likely than Republicans to blame Trump or his movement for that trend.
Whatever the precise percentage, multiple independent surveys this fall point in the same direction: a meaningful share of Democrat voters now entertain extra-constitutional or forceful removal of a sitting president as an acceptable outcome.
What This Means For The Country
Polling numbers move around, but the underlying signal here has held steady across several surveys and research teams over more than a year. That consistency is the real story, not any single percentage point.
When a sitting president faces assassination attempts and a growing share of one party’s voters entertain force or a coup as acceptable, that reflects a serious erosion of the peaceful transfer of power Americans have always claimed to prize.
Conservatives have long warned that heated rhetoric branding a president as an existential threat to democracy carries real consequences once enough people believe it. These survey results, whatever their precise margins, suggest that warning was not overblown.
A healthy republic settles disputes over the presidency at the ballot box, not through force, coups, or violence, and leaders across the political spectrum have a responsibility to say so plainly and often.
It’s reported that a quarter of American adults — including 44% of self-identified Democrats — say they support the use of force to prevent President Donald Trump from being president, according to a new survey's findings described by University of Chicago political scientist…
— Kurt Campbell (@Campy3488) September 28, 2026
Pape has spent over four years tracking these attitudes at the University of Chicago, and his team has watched support for force-based removal climb from single digits to double digits among Democrats in a relatively short span. Whether the final number lands at 33%, 39%, or 44% in any given poll, the trend line itself is the point Americans should not ignore.
Sources:
rwtnews.com, nypost.com, thenationaldesk.com, dailycaller.com, news.osu.edu, reaganfoundation.org
