Standing By: Right-Wing Militia Groups and the United States Election

In this joint report, ACLED and MilitiaWatch map militia activity across the United States and assess the risk of violence before, during, and after the 2020 election. Access data directly through the US Crisis Monitor. Definitions and methodology decisions are explained in theUS Crisis Monitor FAQs and the US methodology brief. For more information, please check the full ACLED Resource Library.

Executive Summary

Militia groups and other armed non-state actors pose a serious threat to the safety and security of American voters. Throughout the summer and leading up to the general election, these groups have become more assertive, with activities ranging from intervening in protests to organizing kidnapping plots targeting elected officials (CNN, 13 October 2020). Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have specifically identified extreme far right-wing and racist movements as a primary risk factor heading into November, describing the election as a potential “flashpoint” for reactionary violence ( The Nation, 30 September 2020; New York Times, 6 October 2020).

ACLED collects and analyzes information about the actions of state, non-state, and sole perpetrator¹ violence and demonstration activity. MilitiaWatch tracks, documents, and analyzes contemporary US militia movements, and provides reports connecting long-term militia trends to broader political events. ACLED and MilitiaWatch data indicate that right-wing militias have steadily ramped up their activities, and taken on an increasingly outsized profile within the national political environment. 

This joint report reviews the latest data on right-wing militia organizations across the country, identifying the most active groups and mapping the locations most likely to experience heightened militia activity before, during, and after the election.

Although many US militias can be described as ‘latent’ in that they threaten more violence than they commit, several recently organized militias are associated with a right-wing ideology of extreme violence towards communities opposed to their rhetoric and demands for dominance and control. The lack of open sanctions of these groups from public figures and select local law enforcement has given them space to operate, while concurrently allowing political figures to claim little direct responsibility for violent actions from which they hope to benefit. 

ACLED has tracked the activities of over 80 militias across the US in recent months, the vast majority of which are right-wing armed groups. This report maps a subset of the most active right-wing militias, including ‘mainstream militias,’ which are those that work to align with US law enforcement (the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers, the Light Foot Militia, the Civilian Defense Force, and the American Contingency); street movements that are highly active in brawls (the Proud Boys, and Patriot Prayer); and highly devolved libertarian groups, which have a history of conflict and are skeptical of state forces (the Boogaloo Bois, and People’s Rights [Bundy Ranch]).  

Analysis of a variety of drivers and barriers to militia activity allows for identification of high-risk locations ahead of the election. These include locations that have seen substantial engagement in anti-coronavirus lockdown protests as well as places where militias might have perceptions of ‘leftist coup’ activities. Spaces where militias have been active in setting up recruitment drives or holding training for members are also at heightened risk, as are spaces where militia members cultivate personal relationships with police or law enforcement or where there might be a friendly attitude by law enforcement towards militia presence or activity. In the context of the upcoming election, swing states are also at heightened risk, in line with scholarship around election violence and unrest being more common in competitive spaces. And lastly, state capitals and ‘periphery’ towns also remain important potential inflection points for violence, especially in more rural and suburban areas that have been particularly conducive to the foundation and regular activities of militia groups. Medium-population cities and suburban areas with centralized zones also serve as locations of major gravitational pull. Barriers to militia activity, meanwhile, can include locations with an overwhelming left-leaning population and/or large populations unsupportive of militias. 

Based on these drivers and barriers, this report finds that capitals and peripheral towns, as well as  medium-population cities and suburban areas with centralized zones, in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Oregon are at highest risk of increased militia activity in the election and post-election period, while North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California, and New Mexico are at moderate risk. Spotlights on each of these states offer a glimpse into recent trends associated with militia activity in each context in recent months. 

Key Conclusions

There has been a major realignment of militia movements in the US from anti-federal government writ large to mostly supporting one candidate, thereby generally positioning the militia movement alongside a political party. This has resulted in the further entrenchment of a connection between these groups’ identities and politics under the Trump administration, with the intention of preserving and promoting a limited and warped understanding of US history and culture.

These armed groups engage in hybrid tactics. They train for urban and rural combat while also mixing public relations, propaganda works, and ‘security operations’ via both online and physical social platforms to engage those outside of the militia sphere. There is an increasing narrative and trend that groups are organizing to ‘supplement’ the work of law enforcement or to place themselves in a narrowly defined ‘public protection’ role in parallel with police departments of a given locale.

Ahead of the election, right-wing militia activity has been dominated by reactions to recent social justice activism like the Black Lives Matter movement, public health restrictions due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and other perceived threats to the ‘liberty’ and ‘freedoms’ of these groups.

And right-wing militia groups are often highly competitive with one another, but many have coalesced around this period of heightened political tension, and have even brought Proud Boys and QAnon-linked groups into the fold. While some groups have indicated that they are receptive to calls for deescalation and conflict avoidance, they remain vulnerable to hardline elements that may work clandestinely towards violent action aimed at dominating public space around the election.

Introduction & Key Trends

ACLED and MilitiaWatch have identified a major realignment of militia movements in the US from anti-federal government writ large to mostly supporting one candidate, thereby generally positioning the militia movement with a political party. This has resulted in the further entrenchment of a connection between these groups’ identities and politics under the Trump administration, with the intention of preserving and promoting a limited and warped understanding of US history and culture. 

We find that these armed groups engage in hybrid tactics. They train for urban and rural combat while also mixing public relations, propaganda works, and ‘security operations’ via both online and physical social platforms to engage those outside of the militia sphere. There is an increasing narrative and trend that groups are organizing to ‘supplement’ the work of law enforcement or to place themselves in a narrowly defined ‘public protection’ role in parallel with police departments of a given locale.

Ahead of the election, right-wing militia activity has been dominated by reactions to recent social justice activism like the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, public health restrictions due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and other perceived threats to the ‘liberty’ and ‘freedoms’ of these groups.

Right-wing militia groups are often highly competitive with one another, but many have coalesced around this period of heightened political tension, and have even brought Proud Boys (more information below) and QAnon-linked² groups into the fold. While some groups have indicated that they are receptive to calls for deescalation and conflict avoidance, they remain vulnerable to hardline elements that may work clandestinely towards violent action aimed at dominating public space (see, for example, Soufan Center, 19 October 2020). 

The first section of this report introduces nine of the most active militias in the US  and reviews their origins, goals, and core activities. While ACLED, through our partnership with MilitiaWatch, has tracked the activity of over 80 militias across the US in recent months, only a select number of these groups are highlighted below, for brevity; footnotes throughout the report offer more insight into some of the other active militias in the US. This report concentrates predominantly on right-wing militias, as this grouping has seen the most significant increase in their profile and activities in recent months.³ Their actions, planned and executed, extend to the US election and beyond, and many of these groups have formed in reaction to other ongoing crises including pandemic shutdown orders and social justice movements. While some groups are localized, many engage in widespread activities throughout the US (see map above) and transcend state borders.

The NFAC have been active across at least three states and Washington, DC since the start of the summer, including in their ‘home’ state of Georgia; Kentucky, where they have shown up in Louisville in support of Breonna Taylor; and Louisiana. The group has shown up exclusively in the context of protests. For example, in late July, about 2,500 armed and 300 unarmed NFAC members held a rally in Louisville, Kentucky in support of the BLM movement, demanding justice for Breonna Taylor. The group was met by III%ers counter-protesting, resulting in verbal sparring between the two groups, though police in heavy riot gear kept both sides apart. 

In the final section of the report, we explore a number of drivers of militia activity in order to identify areas at  heightened risk of militia activity in the lead up to the vote, the election period itself, and its aftermath.

Militias in the ACLED Dataset

ACLED collects information on militias around the world and categorizes these groups as non-state armed movements with members affiliated by ideology, identity, or community. Globally, militias are responsible for more political violence than any other group, including governments, rebels, and insurgents. In many countries, militias operate at the behest of political figures to influence competition and competitors through attacks on candidates, supporters, ‘rival’ communities, and infrastructure. However, their actions transcend elections and episodes of political competition, and these groups frequently operate as a parallel violent fixture for political elites, parties, and interests. In some cases, these groups are kept ‘on retainer’ for political figures in and out of government for whom they commit acts of violence. In exchange for violence, these groups receive the patronage of political elites and impunity. Increasingly, militias who operate as the violent arm of a political movement engage in lucrative, criminal activity to supplement their incomes and ‘use their skills.’ They often have no clear political agenda and organize to promote a particular politicized identity or an ideology centered on an identity, and their short-term objective is to create violence and disorder across ‘rival’ communities.  

Drivers and Barriers of Militia Activity

While militia activity has been reported in at least 34 states and Washington, DC since late May 2020, there are specific locations at heightened risk of militia activity during the upcoming election period and its immediate aftermath. These assessments are made based on trends in the data and information collected by ACLED and MilitiaWatch, as well as by taking into account a variety of drivers and barriers to militia activity. 

For example, locations that have seen substantial engagement in anti-coronavirus lockdown protests are at heightened risk. This stems from the direct link between state authority and the imposition of such restrictions, which challenges the ideals of many of the groups introduced above. These protests also serve as crucial network-building events for right-wing activists to re-activate for other protests and counter-demonstrations.

Also at risk are places where militias might have perceptions of ‘leftist coup’ activities. While ‘leftist coup’ activities are poorly defined among armed movements, they can be understood as fear of organized left-wing activism against right-wing activity. Protests organized by and around BLM, or places where anti-BLM activists may fear Antifa activity, are also at a heightened risk of militia activity. Leaders of militias often refer to BLM activists as “Marxists” (The Atlantic, November 2020). It is important to note that the ‘leftist coup’ phenomenon is not founded in any real detectable dynamics, and appears to rather be related more to endemic paranoia among many of the armed militias of the US. 

Spaces where militias have been active in setting up recruitment drives or holding training for members are also at high risk. Even if militias are not engaging in demonstrations, for example, such organization around recruitment and training indicates a highly mobilized contingency that can be easily activated. Evidence of these events likely speaks to much greater preparedness training aimed at both response to protest movements and a potential escalation around the election. Training events also serve to reify group identity and membership by placing individual members in situations in which they train to work together as a unit and further normalize their political views in conversation with ‘like-minded’ individuals. Such information is notoriously difficult to track, however. Some groups, for example, may claim to train every other weekend, but unless researchers at MilitiaWatch or ACLED can find confirmation of such training actually occurring, it is not coded, per ACLED methodology. Similarly, a great deal of organizing of such events occurs on the individual-to-individual level; this makes tracking such information across all militias by researchers and journalists nearly impossible. When such information around recruitment and training can be verified, it is recorded by researchers at MilitiaWatch or ACLED and is included in the ACLED dataset; this means that such information is almost surely underreported in the data and should be assumed to be a conservative estimate.⁶ 

In spaces where militia members cultivate personal relationships with police or law enforcement, there is likely to be increased militia activity. A friendly attitude by law enforcement towards militia presence or activity has been seen at protests across the US (The Intercept, 19 June 2020). These relationships are fostered for multiple reasons, including in contexts where police presence is limited due to staffing shortages (i.e. retirements, resignations). In such cases, the likelihood that police may welcome the ‘extra help’ in ‘keeping the peace’ is expected to bolster militia activity. 

State capitals and ‘periphery’ towns also remain important potential inflection points for violence, as they provide a natural coalescence point, especially in more rural and suburban areas that have been particularly conducive to the foundation and regular activities of militia groups. Medium-population cities and suburban areas with centralized zones — such as parks, main streets, and plazas — also serve as locations of major gravitational pull. These locations are potentially fertile grounds for violence from the groups identified in this report. This is especially true in contexts where groups are able to draw from a large population outside of the primary location, and in places that can be easily accessed from these hinterland and suburban regions. 

Barriers to militia activity, meanwhile, can include locations with an overwhelming left-leaning population and/or large populations unsupportive of militias. Within these parameters, a location like Albany, New York would be more likely to see violence related to the right-wing armed movements we have identified, while New York City would remain less likely. 

States at risk of militia activity

Taking these drivers and barriers into account, capitals and peripheral towns, as well as  medium-population cities and suburban areas with centralized zones, in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Oregon are deemed to be at highest risk of increased militia activity in the election and post-election period. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, California, and New Mexico are found to be at moderate risk.