Serving in public office in the United States is dangerous. From state and local government to Congress, an unending river of violent threats is washing through the mailboxes, offices, voice mail and texts of those who govern the nation. Thousands of public servants are living, working and, in the final weeks of election season, campaigning in a state of fear.
And it’s getting worse, officeholders said in dozens of interviews.
An investigation by The New York Times examining hundreds of records obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, court documents and law enforcement logs has found that, over a two-year period from 2024 to August of this year, thousands of violent threats inundated the lives of elected officials in unprecedented ways.
This is probably the worst thing about Trump – the way he has normalized violence, threats, daylight robbery, corruption, bullying, blackmailing – the list is endless.
Some threats were vague; some were frighteningly specific. They promised torture, stabbing, rape and murder. They aimed at Republicans and Democrats alike, and at a range of officeholders from county clerks to United States senators. They targeted spouses, parents, siblings and children.
At least 44 governors, as well as their staff and families, have been subjected to violent threats over the past two years, The Times’s investigation found. That’s also true of at least 70 of the nation’s 100 senators, and at least 185 members of the House of Representatives — nearly half the body. More than half of the country’s secretaries of state, most of whom serve as their states’ chief election officers, have received threats of violence.
Actual violence also spiked during that period: assassination attempts against Donald Trump, the killing of Charlie Kirk, the assassination of the legislative leader Melissa Hortman and her husband in Minnesota, the firebombing of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania. For many elected officials, the escalation is a grim testament to the toxicity of violent rhetoric and how it can shake the country’s democratic institutions.
The threats have also reshaped private lives. Dozens of officials have fortified their homes, installed cameras and hired private security guards, often at their own expense. They’ve changed their daily routines, moved their children to new schools, grocery-shopped only at certain times and places. They’ve scrubbed the internet to remove personal information about themselves and their loved ones.
Some of them have altered what they say in public and, in rare cases, how they govern. Some, including members of Congress, have quit. Both parties have struggled to recruit candidates, especially women.
And all of this, I suppose, will continue even after Trump either drops dead or stops being president. All of this means we can never have nice things ever again.
Vague state and federal laws and free speech protections can make prosecution challenging. Anonymous letters and screen names can be hard to track. The sheer volume of threats can make hunting down those responsible virtually impossible.
This new normal can also be measured in dollars spent. In the 2017-2018 election cycle, candidates for federal office spent roughly $6 million on security-related items, according to campaign finance records. In the current midterm cycle, candidates had already spent at least $25 million by Aug. 1, with the final general election sprint still to come. That excludes what many officials are spending from their own pockets.
All of which is going to slash the pool of candidates down to nothing.
Women are often more aggressively targeted than men, and harder to recruit, said Greta Neubauer, the Democratic minority leader in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Mothers are more apt to avoid the risk to themselves and their families, she said.
If potential recruits don’t bring up fears of violence on their own, Ms. Neubauer does. “There is an amount of risk that you and your family are going to need to accept if you choose to do this,” she regularly says to potential candidates. “And we want to make sure that you are fully aware of that in advance.”
That’s one of the most despair-inducing things I’ve ever read.