The US Capitol Police opened 14,938 threat assessment cases in 2025, up from 9,474 in 2024, a rise of almost 58% in a single year. Then on November 3, Americans voted in the midterm elections, and the day passed with a handful of bomb threats, some fake text messages and no major violence.
Both things are true, and the gap between them is the useful part. Political violence in the US has not been concentrated on election days. It has arrived at homes, on campuses, at fairs and on short walks from a hotel. Here is what the data shows, what happened around the vote, and what it means for anyone responsible for protecting a public figure or an executive.
How big is the threat?
Four official sources point the same way.
Congress. Capitol Police threat cases reached a record 14,938 in 2025. In the spring, the department's chief said 2026 was on pace to exceed that.
The president and protectees. The Secret Service director said in July that the agency had investigated about 10,000 threats in 2026 so far, against roughly 7,000 at the same point a year earlier.
Federal judges. The US Marshals Service recorded 562 threats against 395 judges in fiscal 2025.
Local officials. In early 2026, 54% of local elected officials told Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative they had faced hostility, and 17% reported threats. Among local election officials, the Brennan Center found 32% had been threatened, harassed or abused.
Executives are inside the same trend. In a 2025 survey by the security company Allied Universal, 46% of US corporate security chiefs said the threat of violence to their executives had risen over two years. Boards have responded with money. 37.8% of S&P 500 companies disclosed security spending for executives in 2025, up from 23.6% in 2021.
At a glance: the threat data
Source | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
US Capitol Police | 14,938 threat cases | 2025 |
Secret Service | ~10,000 threats investigated | 2026, to July |
US Marshals | 562 threats, 395 judges | Fiscal 2025 |
Local officials (Princeton) | 54% faced hostility | Q1 2026 |
S&P 500 companies | 37.8% pay for executive security | 2025 |
The attacks that changed the planning
The list of serious attacks and plots since mid-2024 is long. Read together, these are the ones that matter most for protective planning:
Butler, Pennsylvania, July 2024. An attempt on Donald Trump's life at a rally. A Senate report later described a "cascade of errors".
Midtown Manhattan, December 2024. UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson was shot on his way from his hotel to an investor event. The man who killed him pleaded guilty in August to federal stalking and cyberstalking charges.
Harrisburg, April 2025. The Pennsylvania governor's residence was set on fire while the family slept.
Minnesota, June 2025. A gunman went to the homes of state lawmakers, killing Melissa Hortman and her husband.
Utah Valley University, September 2025. Charlie Kirk was shot from a rooftop. An independent review found no formal security assessment and no written event plan.
San Francisco, April 2026. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman's home.
Canfield, Ohio, September 2026. A man carrying two pistols charged at governor nominee Amy Acton before her detail stopped him.
Three patterns run through that list. The targets included executives as well as politicians. The places were often homes and routine moments rather than big set-piece events. And where a protective detail was close and a plan existed, the outcome was better.
Political violence in the US has not been concentrated on election days. It has arrived at homes, on campuses, at fairs and on short walks from a hotel.
What happened around the vote
The run-up was tense. The FBI issued a public warning on threats to election workers in mid-October. Election offices in at least 13 states received letters containing white powder, and on November 3 the Justice Department charged an Oklahoma man in connection with hundreds of letters, which turned out to contain a harmless powder.
Election Day itself was quiet. The national election security center reported a bomb threat at a polling site in Toledo, threats to several schools, and fake "polling place moved" texts in Fulton County. A threat in Gibraltar, Michigan, moved voting into a high school parking lot for part of the day. As of November 4, no major candidate was disputing the results.
Analysts warned against reading too much into a calm day. Pam Smith of Verified Voting called it "a pause, not a resolution." The data backs her caution in one specific way. A September review by the Center for Strategic and International Studies counted 11 election-related terrorism incidents between 2015 and mid-2026, and only one was planned for Election Day itself. The risk tends to sit in the weeks around a vote and in the people it elevates, more than in the polling place.
Dates to watch next:
November 9. A court hearing in the Kirk case.
December 18. Federal sentencing in the Thompson case.
January 3, 2027. The new Congress is sworn in, along with a wave of new governors in January.
Five lessons for protection teams
The incident record and the research behind it point to five practical changes.
Treat the home as a primary site. Several of the most serious attacks of the last two years happened at residences. In the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, Capitol Police cameras recorded the break-in with no one watching. A camera only helps if someone is monitoring it and knows what to do next.
Shrink the home address footprint. The Minnesota attacker carried a list of 11 people-search websites. In a Consumer Reports test, doing the removals by hand cleared 70% of listings within a week, faster than the paid services it tested.
Watch for leakage as well as threats. The FBI's guide on targeted violence says most attackers do not threaten their targets directly. They tell someone else. Monitoring that only looks for direct threats will miss the warning.
Assess every venue, including friendly ones. The Kirk review found no formal assessment of an event attended by about 3,000 people. Campus talks, town halls and fairs need the same advance as a conference keynote.
Close the short walks. The Thompson attack happened on a routine walk between a hotel and an event. Those few unprotected minutes are where planning tends to be thinnest.
At a glance: five lessons
Lesson | Practical step |
|---|---|
The home is a primary site | Monitored cameras, a written response plan |
Addresses are public | Quarterly removal sweep, done by hand |
Attackers leak | Monitor for talk about venues and events |
Friendly venues get hit | Formal assessment for every appearance |
Short walks are exposed | Plan the hotel-to-venue minutes |
The UK is seeing the same pattern
UK readers will recognize all of this. The former minister Ann Widdecombe was killed at her Devon home in July, and the Home Secretary has ordered a review of protective security for royals, ministers, MPs and local representatives. The Electoral Commission found that 55% of candidates in the May 2026 local elections were harassed or intimidated. In a 2025 survey of 224 MPs, 27% had received death threats.
What comes next
The midterms are over, but the numbers behind them are not going down. For protection teams, the next step is to stop planning around the last election and start planning around the next year.
We have done that work in this week's premium briefing, The 2027 Threat Outlook: Seven Shifts Protection Teams Should Plan For Now. It covers political violence alongside state-directed plots on US and UK soil, drones that private teams cannot legally stop, AI-cloned voices, Martyn's Law and the repriced travel map. It includes a first-quarter plan and a downloadable 2027 Threat Planning Worksheet that scores each shift against your own principal.
The 2027 Threat Outlook
Seven shifts protection teams should plan for next year, a first-quarter plan, and the 2027 Threat Planning Worksheet that scores each shift against your own principal.
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Data and court records were checked on November 5, 2026. Vendor survey figures are flagged where used.