Over the past two years, in partnership with CivicPulse, BDI has conducted quarterly surveys with local elected officials on their experiences of threats and harassment. These quarterly surveys allow us to identify spikes or shifts in hostility, monitor important trends in threats and harassment, and contextualize these trends in the larger political environment.

In each survey round, local elected officials are asked about their personal experiences with hostility, their concerns about hostility, and their willingness to engage in certain political activities – like running for re-election or attending events – in the future. The survey captures not only the presence but also the intensity of concerns, allowing us to assess the impact of even low levels of worry on democratic processes.

This analysis looks at over 4,000 survey responses from the last two years to explore both the contributors to, and effects of, worries about hostility. It additionally investigates whether, and to what degree, demographic factors and personal experiences with hostility are connected to the severity of worries about hostility, as well as their links to willingness to engage in political behaviors such as running for re-election or working on controversial topics.

Overview

Our survey results show that local elected officials have experienced significant levels of hostility – with over half reporting some form of threat or harassment – and that this hostility has resulted in decreased willingness to take part in key political processes. Complementary research from our partners at the Brennan Center for Justice finds that acts of intimidation against both local and state officeholders have undermined their ability to engage with constituents, curtailed their policy choices, and discouraged continued public service. These findings are supported by additional research from the University of Illinois Chicago, which also finds that targeted officials have expressed “fear that publicly sharing their experiences may fuel more violence,” compounding the wider chilling effects that political violence and the threat of political violence have on civic space.¹

What remains relatively unexplored is the impact that officials’ worries about threats can have on their willingness to engage in political activities.

Our survey indicates that officials have expressed persistent concerns about hostility directed at them or their families. Following a decline in the beginning of 2024, worries about hostility spiked in mid-2024 amid a rise in reported threat events after the attempted assassination of then-candidate Trump in July. In the third quarter of the year, worries decreased compared to the second quarter, though they remained at higher levels than at the start of the year. 

In this analysis, we find that personal experience with hostility is the largest predictor of worry among local elected officials, with these effects felt most acutely among women, non-white, and younger officials. Our analysis also indicates that worries about hostility have reduced the willingness of officials to take a wide variety of political actions, with women and younger officials being particularly less likely to engage in these activities due to concern about threats and harassment. Additionally, the results suggest that concerns about potential hostility had an even greater negative impact on future intentions than past experiences of hostility.

Assessing this element of hostility’s chilling effects, where even the perception of danger can alter behavior, is critical to understanding the broader impact of political violence and the normalization of violent rhetoric. Fear of hostility can stifle engagement and skew the political landscape, driving decision-making away from moderation and collaboration, and impeding representation among targeted groups. The findings of this analysis suggest that the longer-term consequences of hostility – such as future-oriented worry and behavioral intentions – may be just as damaging as its immediate effects, undermining both individual political participation and the health of local democracy.

Findings

Despite fluctuations in 2024, levels of severe worry among local officials are high

Throughout 2023 and 2024, severe worries – which we define as responding “often” or “all of the time” to questions about how often local elected officials felt worried about hostility to themselves or their families – stayed at high levels. Most quarterly survey waves have indicated that a sizable portion of officials experience serious concerns about insults, harassment, and threats. Across all survey waves, nearly 1 in 5 officials have reported severe worries about insults directed at them or their families; 1 in 6 about harassment; 1 in 8 about threats; and over 1 in 20 about physical attacks.

Coming into the first quarter of 2024, local elected officials expressed the lowest levels of severe worries since the beginning of the survey project in 2022. This decline, however, was not sustained: the proportion of local officials who expressed worry about hostility increased significantly in the middle of 2024, likely correlated with the deadly shooting at Trump’s campaign rally and subsequent spike in reported threat events (see graph below). The severity of worry for all types of hostility rose in the second quarter of 2024, with the level of concern doubling or even tripling in some cases from the first to second quarter. For example, the percentage of officials who responded that they were worried “often” or “all of the time” about threats to themselves or their families grew from 5.7% to 17% – a 180% increase.

In the period approaching the election in November, the number of officials who expressed worry decreased again, with the largest declines for worries about threats and attacks (see graph above). However, while the proportion of officials who reported worry dropped between the second and third quarters of 2024, the severity of worry remained at elevated levels compared to the start of the year. Approximately 1 in 5 officials still reported that they were worried “often” or “all of the time” about insults, 1 in 6 about harassment, and 1 in 10 about threats.

Zooming out, we can see how national political events, and the resulting political environment, likely came to bear on experiences of worry among local elected officials in 2024. Despite large fluctuations amid changes to the political landscape during the first half of the year, levels of worry returned to the high baseline recorded during previous survey waves going into the election.

Demographics and personal experiences with hostility impact worry, as well as willingness to engage in key political processes

In our models, the largest predictor of worry was whether an official had personally experienced hostility – insults, harassment, threats, or attacks – in the last three months. Based on our analysis, nearly any personal experience with hostility consistently drives increased concerns about future hostility, including more extreme forms of hostility, such as threats and attacks. For example, even officials who experienced less severe hostility, such as insults and harassment, were substantially more likely to report greater worries about physical attacks in the future — underlining how hostility of any form can contribute to increased fears.

Based on prior analysis, we know that women and people of color report proportionally higher rates of hostility compared to men and white officials. Even when accounting for personal experiences with hostility, our models show that, on average, women, non-white, and younger officials are still likely to report more serious worries about hostility. When controlling for the above demographic factors, the models also show that officials who identified as Republican or Independent were less likely to report serious worries compared to Democrats.

We found that as officials expressed more severe worries, the less willing they were to engage in a wide swathe of both political and non-political actions. Critically, worries about hostility had larger negative effects on future intentions than prior experiences with hostility themselves. Officials with serious worries were less likely to express willingness to: run for re-election; run for another office; work on controversial topics; participate in public events; be in public spaces when not working; or post on social media. Specifically, concerns about insults and harassment were strongly associated with a lower willingness to take part in these actions. On the other hand, worries about threats and attacks had little effect, perhaps due to the overall lower likelihood of experiencing these more severe forms of hostility on average, compared to insults and harassment. 

There was a similar connection between levels of worry, an official's gender and age, and willingness to engage in political actions. Women and younger officials were less likely, on average, to report willingness to run for re-election, run for another office, work on controversial topics, participate in public events, be in public spaces when not working, or post on social media due to concerns about hostility. Minority status had a small but significant effect only with respect to posting on social media, with non-minority officials expressing less willingness to engage with social media than minority officials. Notably, political affiliation had no significant impact on these decisions.

These findings demonstrate the cascading effect hostility can have on local elected officials from certain backgrounds and demographics. The role of local officials is to represent their communities, but when specific groups experience higher rates of hostility and worry – as shown here – their ability to serve effectively is endangered. This dynamic risks undermining representative democracy at the local level, as officials may withdraw from political participation or opt to less openly represent their communities due to concerns over hostility.

Conclusions

Threats and harassment can close off civic space, but analysis of our survey results shows that worry about hostility itself can have similarly corrosive effects on local democracy. Our findings indicate that worries about hostility can stifle political behavior, and these negative impacts disproportionately affect women officials, minority officials, and younger officials. Creating a hostile climate that increases worry can influence or suppress certain political actions, push officials out of office, or prevent prospective officials from entering public service, even in the absence of direct threats or physical violence. For those who have directly experienced incidents of targeted hostility, the effects are even more acute.  

These worries are not abstract, but rooted in the lived experiences of local officials. Complementary event-level data from BDI’s Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD) confirm that hostile incidents targeting local officials have increased throughout 2024, with some of the highest monthly event counts recorded since the start of the project’s data collection in 2022.

In this survey analysis, we found further evidence that experiences of hostility such as insults and harassment, outside of just influencing worries about future insults and harassment, also substantially increased worries about more severe forms of hostility. In light of the findings that worry can attenuate the willingness of officials to take actions such as running for re-election, these relationships underline the importance of intervening early even in less severe forms of targeting with effective response strategies at the local level.

Levels of worry remain high going into 2025, and will require continued monitoring and research to develop short- and long-term solutions. Qualitative and quantitative data show that impacted officials often feel unable to perform their duties safely and, in some cases, are altering their behavior to avoid potential hostility, posing serious challenges for local democracy. These conclusions dovetail with findings from BDI’s interview research with local elected officials themselves._² For example, this analysis corroborates, with empirical evidence, that officials dealing with hostility directed towards themselves or their families will and do seek to make behavioral changes to redress their concerns. For example, for those dealing with online hostility, behavioral changes on social media were often seen as the only option. As one official stated, “Something like this [hostility] will happen to you. When it does, take a deep breath, don’t panic… and don’t post on social media.” 

In addition to personal behavioral changes, officials BDI interviewed described the importance of fostering connections with their colleagues across the political spectrum, as well as others in their communities, to help bring down the temperature around contentious interactions and to serve as a support system in the face of hostility. Some specifically spoke of working with local attorneys or city managers to better understand their options when facing hostility, and emphasized that having good working relationships with colleagues and law enforcement before facing threats and harassment helped build confidence in how to handle difficult situations if and when they arose. These trends highlight both the necessity and the opportunity for holistic, multi-partisan approaches to address and mitigate the risk of threat and harassment activity over time. 

The persistent climate of hostility – and worry – faced by local officials threatens the safety and effectiveness of public service, undermining the foundation of local democracy. Our survey highlights substantial concerns among local officials and the effects these worries can have on engagement with political processes. These findings further underscore the need for whole-of-society solutions that not only protect officials from actual threats and harassment, but also advance communication and support approaches that alleviate – rather than exacerbate – worries about hostility that make it harder for officials to serve their communities.