Faith in the integrity of the presidential election has been concerningly low for months — in large part because of President Trump’s repeated false claims that the election was stolen from him. And on Wednesday, we saw an extreme example of the consequences of that mistrust when pro-Trump extremists briefly but violently occupied the U.S. Capitol.
This was undoubtedly a historic and disturbing moment. But it’s important to remember that it did not happen in a vacuum, which we can see from polling on topics related to Wednesday’s breach — faith in the election, support for the president, trust in institutions — as well as a comparison with the most analogous event in recent U.S. history: the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Taken together, these suggest that the attack on the Capitol shows how right-wing extremist views have become palatable to more members of an increasingly isolated and angry Trump base, even as they shock the rest of the country. CONTINUED
Nathaniel Rakich, Kaleigh Rogers & Geoffrey Skelley, FiveThirtyEight