National

Using the past year of data from BDI and our partners, this special report identifies 5 key political violence trends that emerged in the United States in 2024, evaluates how these risk factors will evolve in 2025, and elevates 3 effective resilience and response strategies that can inform mitigation efforts in the coming months.

Local monitoring is essential for identifying early warning signs. BDI produces regular national situation reports (SitReps) on key risk trends at the national and state level, disseminated to a vetted list of community leaders and organizations.

Following a spike in threats and harassment against local officials in November driven by national issues like the election, the number of reported incidents declined in December. The latest update from BDI’s Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) captured over 25 events for the month, marking a return to the high baseline recorded earlier in 2024 (see graph below). On aggregate, the data shows that threats and harassment are becoming more frequent over time, even as total levels of political violence trended down last year.

Local monitoring is essential for identifying early warning signs. BDI produces regular national situation reports (SitReps) on key risk trends at the national and state level, disseminated to a vetted list of community leaders and organizations.

A bi-monthly newsletter to share updates from BDI and our network of trainers and practitioners. Tools for non-violently navigating conflict are essential to a healthy democracy. To increase access to these resources, BDI created the Community Safety and De-Escalation Directory - an interactive platform to connect users with a curated network of community safety, de-escalation, and bystander intervention trainers from all around the country.

Following an increase in hostile incidents leading up to the 2024 election, the latest results from the BDI-CivicPulse survey of local elected officials indicate that both hostile experiences and worry about future hostility remained at elevated levels through the final quarter of the year. Threats and harassment continued to have a chilling effect on the functions of local government, with officials reporting particularly high rates of decreased willingness to engage in activities like posting on social media and working on controversial topics.

Local monitoring is essential for identifying early warning signs. BDI produces regular national situation reports (SitReps) on key risk trends at the national and state level, disseminated to a vetted list of community leaders and organizations.

BDI’s Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) captured 30 threat and harassment incidents targeting local officials in January 2025. The data shows an uptick in hostile incidents carried out by officials against other officials over local community-specific issues during the month, and hostility between colleagues during government meetings also contributed to a rise in in-person threat and harassment events. Overall, hostile activity continued at similar levels in January compared to December, which saw a decline from the surge in threats and harassment around the election in November and a return to baseline trends recorded in previous years.

Local monitoring is essential for identifying early warning signs. BDI produces regular national situation reports (SitReps) on key risk trends at the national and state level, disseminated to a vetted list of community leaders and organizations.

Threats and harassment against local officials rose in February following two months of lower activity in the aftermath of the election. BDI’s Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) captured more than 50 events for the month, marking an increase of nearly 40% from January. The rise in hostility was fueled in part by the knock-on effects of national political dynamics playing out at the local level, including an uptick in threats and harassment targeting school officials related to debates over education policy and DEI initiatives.