Q&A: What just happened? Unpacking extremist mobilization and demonstration trends from the 2024 US elections

Before the election, you published an expert comment noting low levels of extremist activity and, therefore, a low risk for organized violence. Did this trend hold through election night?

It did. Our data proved to be a strong indicator of the risk of extremist violence, as we recorded half as much extremist activity in the lead-up to the 2024 elections as in the same period in 2020, following an overall decline in extremist mobilization since 2022 (see graph below). Though there were a few notable acts of violence perpetrated by individuals during the election period — including arson attacks on ballot boxes in the Portland, Oregon area — extremist groups remained extremely quiet, despite some public fears.¹Michael Kunzelman, ‘Nearly 4 years after far-right extremists stormed the U.S. Capitol, election threats persist,’ PBS News, 29 October 2024 To be sure, a relatively swift and decisive victory by Donald Trump likely contributed to a remarkably peaceful election. Journalists have noted²Stuart A. Thompson, Jim Rutenberg, and Steven Lee Myers, ‘After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent,’ The New York Times, 6 November 2024 that outraged claims of election denialism abated quickly once it was clear Trump was leading on election night.

Beyond reduced activity, what other trends have you seen with extremist groups in 2024?

Although extremist activity is down across the board, we’ve been seeing a relative rise in neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity. This comes largely as a result of several white nationalist groups that have been organizing and recruiting in a local chapter-based structure across the country. We’ve also seen geographic shifts where extremist activity is concentrated. The graphic below compares counties with high levels of extremist activity (more than four events in the given period) in the lead-up to the 2020 elections with the levels of extremist activity in the lead-up to the 2024 elections.

On a national level, few of the counties that saw high levels of extremist activity in the lead-up to the 2020 election experienced the same levels this year. Again, reduced overall activity has a role to play in this phenomenon, but significantly, even extremist group strongholds have largely shifted. This reflects a change in the overall composition of extremist group activity in the US. For instance, Davidson County in Tennessee has been a hotbed of extremist group activity in 2024, largely because of a concentration of neo-Nazi organizing in that area. 

It’s also worth noting that six of the seven “battleground states” — except Wisconsin  — have had counties with high levels of extremist activity, most often concentrated in their urban areas, especially in 2020. This may reflect how hotly contested politics has been in these states in recent years. However, other areas, such as the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles County in California, and Miami-Dade County in Florida, tell different stories, reflecting the diversity and complexity of extremist group mobilization. 

ACLED also collects data on demonstrations across the US. Do demonstration trends reveal anything about the political climate around the election?

Pro-Palestine demonstrations represent the largest single demonstration movement in the US this year, accounting for roughly 30% of all demonstration events in 2024. Although these events reached their peak in May, they continued to account for approximately 26% of all events so far in October and were concentrated in several key swing state counties (see graph below). 

Partially because of these trends, in the lead-up to the election, analysts and prominent democrats speculated that pro-Palestine sentiment could play a pivotal role in some swing states.³CBS News, ‘Arab American voters make their choice — Harris, Trump or neither — in election’s final days,’ 29 October 2024; Zack Stanton, ‘Kamala Harris Is Winning Over College Students in Michigan. The Uncommitted Movement Could Still Cost Her the Election,’ POLITICO, 21 October 2024; Cooper Burton, ‘Black and Arab American voters could swing Michigan’s 2024 election,’ ABC News, 3 October 2024 Indeed, during the democratic primaries in February, more than 100,000 people in Michigan voted “uncommitted” in an apparent protest vote over the Biden administration’s stance on Palestine. This trend was particularly pronounced in areas with large numbers of Arab-Americans, such as Dearborn, Michigan, in Wayne County. Indeed, on election night, Trump won Dearborn, with Harris dropping 33 points compared to Biden’s 2020 performance. However, the whole of Wayne County still voted strongly in favor of Harris. Observers anticipated that pro-Palestine sentiment would be reflected in lower turnout or higher levels of third-party voting, which was indeed the case in Dearborn. Yet, neither third-party votes nor a slight drop in turnout compared to 2020 came close to accounting for the margin of Trump’s victory in the state. There is, therefore, little evidence to suggest that pro-Palestine sentiment among some very pro-Palestine constituencies significantly impacted the outcome of the election.

That’s very interesting. What do you think explains this disconnect between demonstration trends and voting trends? 

Of course, it’s incredibly complicated, as so much goes into explaining elections like this. Our data gives unique insights into the issues that are important in certain areas and certain communities across the country. Still, not every issue will necessarily result in an ongoing demonstration movement when an election is held. For example, Gallup polling⁴Megan Brenan, ‘Economy Most Important Issue to 2024 Presidential Vote,’ Gallup, 9 October 2024 found that the economy was by far the most important issue to voters going into the elections, reflecting the importance of the everyday experience of inflation for many voters. However, demonstrations related to high inflation levels have not been a significant trend this year. 

On the other hand, if we take a wider view of the pre-election period, there were certainly signs in our data that economic woes were playing a significant role in US politics. In 2023, we saw a wave of union-led demonstrations for higher pay and better working conditions, termed the “hot labor summer.”⁵Tyler Foggatt, ‘The Historic Battles of “Hot Labor Summer,”’ The New Yorker, 27 July 2023 Our data showed that this wave, which took place amid heightened levels of post-pandemic inflation⁶Tobias Burns, ‘Labor union popularity pops to near record highs following summer of strikes,’ The Hill, 29 August 2024 was one of the most significant developments in demonstration trends that year. 

Does taking a longer view of major demonstration trends reveal anything else about the election?

Yes. Demonstrations demanding access to abortion were a central trend in 2022 and played a pivotal role in Democrats’ strong performance in the midterm elections that year.⁷Sarah Ewall-Wice and Caitlin Huey-Burns, ‘Abortion access proved to be a powerful force in 2022 midterm elections,’ CBS News, 11 November 2022 Although we’ve continued to see spikes in demonstration activity around key anniversaries, including the annual Women’s March and the anniversary of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the US Supreme Court, the massive initial wave of demonstrations was not sustained in the lead-up to this year’s presidential election (see graph below).

Nonetheless, Democrats had hoped that the issue would continue to mobilize voters, especially women.⁸Christine Fernando, ‘Democrats hope the latest court rulings restricting abortion energize voters as election nears,’ The Associated Press, 9 October 2024 However, Harris lost the election and even underperformed amongst women voters compared to Biden’s 2020 results.⁹Holly Honderich, ‘Democrats had bet on women showing up in force. They didn’t,’ BBC, 8 November 2024 Despite this, when access to abortion appeared as a separate issue on ballots in 2024, it performed extremely well, even in states that Trump won. Ballot issues expanding or protecting access to abortion passed in solid Democrat states such as Colorado, New York, and Maryland, but also in swing states that went to Trump, such as Arizona and Nevada, and even in solid red states like Missouri and Montana.¹⁰Amy O’Kruk et al., ‘7 states vote to protect abortion rights, while efforts to expand access in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota fail,’ CNN, 6 November 2024 A pro-abortion rights measure also received 57% of the vote in Florida,¹¹Regan McCarty, ‘Florida amendment to expand abortion access fails. A six-week ban remains,’ NPR, 5 November 2024 though it failed to pass that state’s 60% threshold requirement for amendments to its constitution. The only state that saw pro-abortion access measures fail decisively was South Dakota. Nebraska had a mixed result and continues to restrict abortions after 12 weeks, having enshrined that threshold in its state constitution.¹²Amy O’Kruk et al., ‘7 states vote to protect abortion rights, while efforts to expand access in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota fail,’ CNN, 6 November 2024

Perhaps most significantly, just under a third of the votes in favor of these initiatives in Arizona, Florida, and Nevada also came from voters who supported Trump on the same ballot.¹³Nadine El-Bawab, ‘Abortion ballot initiatives could have helped Harris win, instead Trump overperformed,’ ABC News, 9 November 2024 This trend reflects how abortion was a significant and popular issue this year but not so pivotal as to swing results, especially where voters were able to separate it from the broader support of a candidate. Looking at our demonstration trends, this seems to make sense. The initial 2022 spike in demonstrations supporting access to abortion was one of the most significant demonstration trends we’ve seen since we started collecting data in 2020, and we’ve consistently seen demonstrations in favor of abortion access far outpace anti-abortion demonstrations. However, possibly because initial outrage over the issue lost some steam in the intervening two years, and perhaps because voters were given opportunities to vote on abortion as a standalone issue, it did not prove pivotal in the 2020 election results.