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Written by Grayson Wormser

Here are five insights you won’t want to miss this month:

1. Gen Z Remains Outlier When It Comes to Political Violence

What You Need to Know: We’ve previously shared how younger generations are significantly more likely to accept various forms of political violence compared to older Americans. New data from August suggests that these trends hold up over time, with Gen Z over 3x more likely to accept violence against elected officials compared to Gen X, for example.  This aligns with other democracy measures we’ve tracked, including results from our May 2024 survey that found only 62% of Gen Z voters feel as if living in a democracy is important, compared to almost nine in ten Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers.

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2. Where Does The Threat Lie?

What You Need to Know: The assassination attempt against former President Trump highlighted the heightened tension and increased risk for violence we’re likely to see through the remainder of the election cycle, especially as continued claims around non-citizens voting and mail-in ballots cast doubt in the election process. So, we took advantage of our predictive modeling capabilities to develop an interactive map to better understand where there is an increased risk of violence if voters don’t trust election results. Texas, Missouri, and Illinois stand out as high-risk states, including parts of Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida.  Click the map to explore where voters in other counties of interest lie in their acceptance of political violence.

Explore The Map

3. Trust in AI Content Differs by Political Party

What You Need to Know: Recently, former President Trump falsely claimed pictures of the crowd from a Harris/Walz rally were AI-genrated. While this claim was quickly de-bunked, the dual threat AI presents in our elections became clear: not only can AI be used to easily manipulate real content, but false claims that content was AI-generated can further increase doubt in our elections and mislead voters. Our findings show that Democrats/leaners report the highest levels of trust in AI chatbots (44% trust), while Republicans and Independents are less trusting (35% and 27%, respectively). These partisan differences should be explored further, including how AI trust affects trust in our democracy and the November 2024 election, and strategies to address the use of AI in politics.

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4. While Women Are Less Satisfied with Democracy, The Gap is Closing

What You Need to Know: With abortion on the ballot in many states and Vice President Harris running to be the first female president, we wanted to better understand how women feel about the current state of democracy. In general, women are 6% less satisfied with democracy than men according to our July 2024 survey. However, recent trends point to reasons for optimism. Over the last seven months, this satisfaction gap decreased by 4%. Read more below on some potential theories for why we’re seeing this trend and other gender variances we’ve observed.

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5. Most Americans Say Climate Change Affects Their Major Financial Decisions 

What You Need to Know: Building on our collaboration with Brookings which examines levels of climate concern and action among Black voters, we’re continuing to examine Americans’ attitudes towards climate change. Our July 2024 survey found that a majority of Americans (56%) say climate change affects their major financial decisions, from choosing where to live to making career choices and large purchases. Americans’ top concern? Rising food prices rose to the top, surpassing job insecurity, health-related expenses, and population movement.

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Data in Action

Interested in getting your questions answered in our monthly omnibus survey? Learn more here and reach out to Grayson Wormser ([email protected]).

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