Americans far more likely to view politics as greatest threat to safety, study finds

A protester holds an upside-down American flag during a rally in support of labor rights in San Francisco last year. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images View image in fullscreen A protester holds an upside-down American flag during a rally in support of labor rights in San Francisco last year. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Americans far more likely to view politics as greatest threat to safety, study finds New survey reveals one in 10 Americans identify politics as biggest risk they face in life – 10 times the global average Americans are 10 times more likely than people elsewhere in the world to regard politics as the greatest threat to their personal safety, according to a global survey that suggests the country’s deep partisan divisions are poisoning everyday life. The latest Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll found that one in 10 Americans identified politics as the biggest risk they face in their daily lives when asked an open-ended question. The figure is up from 6% in both 2021 and 2023 and well above the global average of 1% across 140 countries. Although Americans remain far more likely to cite road accidents and crime as the worst dangers they face, the survey found the US to be the only country in which more people named politics than personal health conditions as the biggest risk to their safety. “The US figure of 10% is unprecedented,” said Benedict Vigers , a senior global news writer at Gallup, which partnered on the research. “No other country ranked higher. It’s 10 times the global average. “It speaks to how charged the political environment is and has been for many years in the United States that people are now saying that the political situation is not just an issue nationally but is a seeable daily risk to their safety as they go about their normal lives.” The US has ranked among the countries most likely to cite politics as a personal safety risk in all three waves of the World Risk Poll but 2025 marks the first time it has reached the top of the global ranking. It was effectively tied with Hungary, which recorded 9%; polling was conducted months before the country’s recent election . Serbia, Latvia and Lithuania followed at 6% while Slovakia, Russia, Myanmar, Spain and Israel each recorded 5%. But the US in particular has witnessed a surge in political violence over the past decade, including three assassination attempts against Donald Trump, the 2025 killing of Charlie Kirk, the targeting of other national and state officials and a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in January 6, 2021. There has been a rise in localised harassment, death threats against election administrators and the use of doxing and “ swatting ” to intimidate and silence political opposition. The concerns cut across demographic and ideological lines. There were no statistically significant differences by age, gender, education or political affiliation, with Republicans, Democrats and independents all similarly likely to identi