PRESS RELEASE
April 11, 2024

Now publicly available and comprehensively coded, the first-of-its-kind dataset captures more than 750 events targeting a wide range of local officials – from elected leaders to poll workers – and will be updated monthly going into the 2024 election.

Princeton, NJ – Building on pilot data collection conducted in 2022, Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) is now publicly releasing the Threats and Harassment Dataset (THD), a first-of-its-kind dataset capturing hostility towards local officials in the United States. The longitudinal event-based data tracks the rate, frequency, types, and targets of threats and harassment faced by a wide range of local officials around the country, from elected officials at the municipal, county, and township level to appointed officials and election workers. At launch, the dataset contains more than 750 unique observations of threats or harassment from January 2022 to March 2024, based on information gathered from traditional media, open-source monitoring, and a network of data contributors. Moving forward, the THD will be updated monthly to provide users with near-real-time data on the evolving threat and harassment landscape going into the election and beyond, in order to better support evidence-based decision-making to protect civic spaces.

The THD is part of BDI’s Understanding Threats and Harassment Against Local Officials (UTH) project, a mixed methods approach to systematically monitor the full scope of threats and harassment facing local officials across the United States. Powered by a consortium of key information and data contributors, the project aims to develop and advance a shared framework for understanding – and countering – hostile incidents targeting local officials.

“Threats and harassment against officials and election workers endanger their safety, impede their ability to discharge the duties of their office, and undermine democracy,” says BDI Executive Director Shannon Hiller. “Releasing these data publicly and regularly is essential for efforts to quantify the scale of the problem – a critical step toward developing effective policy interventions to push back against these attacks on local government and our elections.”

Key Trends

(1) Hostility towards local officials is a national problem, though trends vary by locality

• A threat or harassment event targeting a local official has been reported in nearly every state since 2022
• Reported events are on the rise overall, with an increase in threats and harassment from 2022 to 2023
• Threats and harassment are becoming increasingly normalized in local civic spaces: while elections and education are primary motivating factors in targeting, other issues like hyper-local and individual grievances drive significant rates of hostility towards officials
  • In 2023, 56% of events were related to grievances other than elections and education issues – such as LGBTQ+ issues; hyper-local grievances like public infrastructure; rulings in individual legal cases (e.g. family court cases) or parking ticket disputes; and public safety – up from approximately 36% in 2022

(2) Death threats and invasions of privacy are the top forms of hostility faced by local officials*

• Threats and harassment occur at an almost equal frequency
• Death threats are the most frequent type of threat recorded in the dataset, at approximately 58% of all threats and 32% of total events
• Invasions of privacy – including doxing; demonstrations at personal homes; stalking or following; and the targeting of people with relationships to officials, such as close friends or family members – are the most frequent type of harassment recorded in the dataset, at approximately 33% of all harassment and 17% of total events

(3) Threats and harassment against local officials have shifted to more anonymous methods, creating challenges for accountability 

• Targeting of local officials has increasingly involved virtual or physically removed methods – meaning the perpetrator is not present when the threat or harassment occurs
  • Examples of such activity include: sending emails, making social media posts, Zoom bombing, mailing letters, making phone calls or leaving voicemails, among others
• Approximately 73% of threats and harassment were delivered by a perpetrator who was not physically present at the time of targeting in 2023, up from 62% in 2022. So far in 2024, approximately 73% of events have involved such methods 
• The majority of events recorded in 2023 involved an unknown or unreported perpetrator, or one with no affiliation to known, named groups, with an increase from 2022. This trend has held so far in 2024, with most events involving unknown or unreported perpetrators, or perpetrators with no affiliation to known, named groups
  • Approximately 4% of events recorded in 2023 involved a perpetrator with an affiliation to a known, named group (e.g. Proud Boys, Goyim Defense League)

(4) The ways in which threats and harassment are expressed are impacted by mobilizing narratives and triggering events

• Perpetrators used anti-LGBTQ+ language in their targeting of officials at heightened rates in the summer and fall of 2022, when offline anti-LGBTQ+ mobilization was at a high
• Perpetrators have used anti-religious language – especially antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric – in their targeting of officials at heightened rates since October 2023, when the Israel-Palestine conflict became a primary driver of offline mobilization

The THD is publicly available and updated monthly. To access the full dataset, please register here. 

Media Contact: Sam Jones, Communications Manager

* Note: Further research is needed to determine if the severity of hostility affects rates of reporting. More severe forms of threats and harassment – such as death threats and invasions of privacy – may be more frequently reported due to the level of potential harm. Conversely, some feedback from targeted officials suggests that there may be less reporting on severe forms of threats and harassment due to concerns over reprisal or further hostility. BDI is regularly expanding sourcing and plans to incorporate verified self-reported data to ensure the full range of threats and harassment is captured in the dataset.

The THD is made possible by the UTH consortium. Current members of the consortium include the Anti-Defamation League, the Brennan Center for Justice, CivicPulse, the Prosecution Project, the National League of Cities, and the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, among others. BDI regularly works to expand data contributions to address gaps in coverage. If you believe your organization has relevant data to contribute, please reach out to [email protected].

The project is supported by the Brennan Center for Justice, the Bipartisan Policy Center, and generous flexible support from BDI’s core funders, following essential start-up funds from the Anti-Defamation League and Stand Together Trust.