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Nearly 40 percent of young Americans believe that political violence is acceptable under certain circumstances, according to the fall 2025 edition of the Harvard Youth Poll released on Thursday morning.
About 28 percent condoned political violence when “the government violates individual rights,” while 11 percent said political violence is acceptable when someone “encourages violence,” and the same share said it’s justifiable when someone “promotes extremist beliefs.”
A 56 percent majority said political violence was unacceptable under any circumstances.
The Youth Poll, conducted by the Harvard Public Opinion Project, surveys more than 2,000 young Americans twice per year. This edition marks the first time the Youth Poll surveyed respondents about political violence, and was put out to respondents shortly after the assassination Charlie Kirk, the influential right-wing activist who was shot at a Utah Valley University speaking event in September.
Kirk’s assassination sparked concern over the state of free speech, especially on American universities’ campuses. According to Thursday’s poll, the incident has left many young Americans more reticent to cross political divides: 16 percent of respondents said the incident had left them “less likely to talk to people who have different political opinions.”
Nearly two-thirds of respondents, though, said Kirk’s killing had not changed their willingness to speak with people who hold opposing beliefs.
Openness to political violence is most common among young Americans who are facing economic challenges and feel judged for expressing their political beliefs, HPOP director John Della Volpe said in the press briefing.
“Wasn’t their party, wasn’t their gender, it wasn’t those things,” Della Volpe said. “It’s this combination of the fragility around economics and the social and emotional connections people have with others around this topic that are far more predictive.”
The poll also reported that young Americans were deeply pessimistic about the country’s political parties and the state of the U.S. economy.
Young Democrats appear to be especially dissatisfied with the performance of their party. When asked to describe their party in one word, 48 percent of Democrats used a negative term, while just 25 percent of Republicans characterized their party negatively.
The figures come as the Democratic Party struggles to coordinate an effective response to Donald Trump, who during his second presidency has shattered norms by pushing the envelope of executive power.
Still, economic concerns transcend party lines, according to the Youth Poll. Respondents were asked what economic issues they most wanted the government to address. Of the respondents, 37 percent named inflation — which rose to 3 percent in September — as their top concern. Healthcare, housing, and jobs trailed far behind.
Young Americans said they were especially concerned about how the emergence of artificial intelligence would impact their labor market prospects. More than half of the respondents, 59 percent, said they were concerned that AI would threaten their job prospects — a significantly higher proportion than the 31 percent that pointed to immigration and 48 percent who named the offshoring of jobs as their main labor market concerns.
The Youth Poll has consistently found that young people disapprove of Trump. That remained true in this edition, with just 29 percent of respondents approving of the president, down two points from the most recent poll issued last spring. Young Americans were also largely disapproving of Trump’s handling of the economy: just 26 percent said he had managed the economy well.
Respondents approved of their Congressional representatives even less than Trump. Just 27 percent approve of Democrats in Congress, and 26 percent said Congressional Republicans were doing a good job.
Trust was also low among respondents for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whose push to upend the medical establishment and roll back recommendations for vaccines has prompted fierce criticism from Democrats and many longtime health policy experts. Sixty-eight percent of young Americans specifically doubted that Kennedy could issue “reliable medical advice about vaccines,” according to the poll.
In a press release announcing the HPOP results, the organization’s student chair, Jordan Schwartz ’27, said the outlook of young Americans captured in the Thursday poll amounted to a “five-alarm fire.”
“If there’s one thing to take away from this poll, it is that life is extraordinarily unstable today, and that everything else is downstream of this fact,” Schwartz added in a press briefing.
—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.
—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at tanya.vidhun@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.
