Poll Reveals Most Americans Doubt Trump Assassination Attempts: Full Breakdown
A new poll suggests that a majority of Americans are skeptical about three reported assassination attempts against President Donald Trump, underscoring growing distrust in government institutions and the media.
Poll shows many Americans doubt Trump assassination attempts, with strong partisan and age divides revealed.
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The survey, released Monday and conducted by NewsGuard and YouGov, found that across the three incidents, an average of 54 percent of respondents either believed the attempts were staged or were unsure. In contrast, 46 percent said they believed the attacks were real.
Thirty percent of respondents said they believed at least one of the three incidents was staged, while 38 percent said they believed all three attempts were genuine.
A NewsGuard editor told The Washington Post: "Increasingly, people on all sides of the political spectrum are distrustful of both this administration and the media.”
White House officials dismissed the findings of the survey.
The poll also referenced a 31-year-old California resident, Cole Allen, who has been charged with attempt to assassinate the President of the United States and several other counts following an incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 25.
Breakdown of the Poll
The survey questioned 1,000 Americans between April 28 and May 4 about three alleged assassination attempts involving Trump: a July 2024 campaign rally in Pennsylvania, an incident at Trump International Golf Club in Florida in September 2024, and the White House Correspondents' Dinner event last month.
While there is no evidence that any of the attempts were staged, the poll revealed strong political divisions.
Democrats were far more likely to suspect the events were not fully real, with 21 percent saying all three were staged, compared to 11 percent of independents and just 3 percent of Republicans.
Twelve percent of all respondents said they believed all three incidents were staged. Of those, 55 percent were Democrats, 38 percent were independents and 7 percent were Republicans.
Thirty-four percent of Democrats said they believed the most recent attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25 was staged, compared to 13 percent of Republicans.
The divide was also visible in earlier incidents. The poll found that 42 percent of Democrats believed the Pennsylvania shooting in Butler, where Trump was grazed by a bullet, was staged, compared to 7 percent of Republicans.
For the Trump International Golf Club incident, 26 percent of Democrats and 7 percent of Republicans believed it was staged.
Across all incidents, 21 percent of Democrats, 11 percent of independents and 3 percent of Republicans expressed belief that the attempts were staged.
Younger Americans were also more skeptical. Thirty-two percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 said the most recent incident was not real, compared to 15 percent of those aged 65 and older.
Rising Conspiracy Theories
The most recent incident at the Washington Hilton sparked widespread conspiracy theories online, where gunman Cole Tomas Allen, 31, allegedly attempted to kill President Trump and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer.
Suspicion was further fueled after video circulated online following comments attributed to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt predicting that "some shots" would be fired during the event. One clip of her remarks received more than 6 million views.
Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene also questioned the official narrative around the Pennsylvania incident, saying the family of victim Corey Comperatore deserved clarity.
"President Trump, of all people, should be leading the charge" she wrote on X in April. "Why isn’t he? That’s the question."
Expert Reactions
Joan Donovan, a Boston University professor who studies media manipulation, said the findings reflect a broader cultural shift.
"It just seems incredibly Hollywood to imagine that this is staged,” Donovan told the Washington Post. "The entire apparatus of the government has been turned into a reality TV show."
She added: "If you look among folks on the left, there is a rising tide of conspiratorial thinking, and a lot of it has to do with people being very unsure about the reliability of all of our institutions."
Sofia Rubinson, a NewsGuard editor, said the results show widespread distrust.
"It’s very striking,” Rubinson told the Washington Post. "Increasingly, people on all sides of the political spectrum are distrustful of both this administration and also the media."
White House Response
Responding to the survey, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Newsweek: "Anyone who thinks President Trump staged his own assassination attempts is a complete moron."