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The Issue
The number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined, according to new CSIS analysis of 30 years of domestic terrorism data in the United States. This includes attacks and plots against elected officials, political candidates, political party officials, and political workers from terrorists with opposing political views. This rising threat warrants continued efforts to increase protective security measures of government targets, strengthen response plans in the event of a successful attack, and counter the spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and violent rhetoric that have motivated many attackers.
Introduction
In late 2022, Solomon Peña, a former candidate for the New Mexico House of Representatives, found himself at the center of a violent political vendetta. After losing the election in a landslide to his Democratic opponent, Peña refused to accept the legitimacy of the results and embarked on a campaign of violent retribution.1 In December 2022, Peña allegedly recruited four men to carry out a series of shootings targeting the homes of Democratic officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico.2 Over the course of several weeks, from early December into January 2023, Peña orchestrated a string of attacks in which gunmen fired at the homes of multiple Democratic politicians. No one was injured in the incidents, but during one of the attacks three gunshots were fired into the bedroom where a state representative’s 10-year-old daughter was sleeping.3
Peña’s arrest in mid-January 2023 brought an end to the violent chapter, but it also underscored a troubling increase in recent years in the number of domestic terrorist attacks motivated by partisan political beliefs. To better understand the trends in U.S. domestic terrorism, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) compiled a dataset of 725 terrorist attacks and plots in the United States between January 1, 1994, and April 30, 2024.4 This brief analyzes the dataset for attacks and plots against government targets, and it yields three main findings.
First, there is an increased terrorist threat against government targets today. Specifically, since 2016 there has been a dramatic rise in attacks and plots motivated by partisan political beliefs. This includes attacks and plots against elected officials, political candidates, political party officials, political staff and workers, and their offices from terrorists with opposing political views. From January 1, 2016, to April 30, 2024, there were a total of 21 such terrorist attacks and plots, compared to a total of just two such incidents in the more than two preceding decades tracked in the CSIS dataset. This elevated threat is in large part due to the increased spread of conspiracy theories that motivate extremists to take violent action.
Second, there has been a significant shift in the ideologies and organization of anti-government terrorists. From 1994 to 2004, 71 percent of attacks and plots against government targets were inspired by general opposition to federal authority, spearheaded by the broader American militia movement. Today, terrorists attacking government targets are more likely to be motivated by partisan political beliefs and rarely have material ties to any group. From 2016 to 2023, only 29 percent of attacks and plots against government targets were inspired by general opposition to federal authority, while a remarkable 49 percent were inspired by partisan political views.
Third, the lethality of attacks against government targets remains low. Since 9/11, only four victims have been killed in attacks against government targets, excluding military and law enforcement targets, which were coded separately in the CSIS data. The low fatality count is attributable to the hardened nature of government targets and the limited intent and low skill of many perpetrators, though there remains the risk that government targets may be successfully attacked in locations with fewer security measures.
The remainder of this brief is divided into five sections. The first provides an overview of terrorism and outlines the dataset used in this analysis. The second analyzes trends in terrorist incidents directed at government targets in the United States. The third examines the increased threat of attacks motivated by partisan political beliefs. The fourth assesses the lethality of terrorist attacks against government targets. The final section provides brief policy implications.
Defining Terrorism and Building the Dataset
This analysis focuses on terrorism, which is defined here as the deliberate use or threat of premeditated violence by nonstate actors with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact of fear or intimidation.5 For inclusion in the dataset, events had to meet all parts of this definition.
The two assassination attempts of former president Donald Trump in the summer of 2024 lie outside of the scope of this analysis. Both events occurred after the end date of data collected for this project, and investigations are ongoing—making it more difficult to come to a definitive judgment as to perpetrator motivation. Nonetheless, the attempts to kill the former president and Republican nominee for president serve as a disturbing reminder of the threat of political violence.6
This brief does not analyze the broad topics of hate speech or hate crimes, which are nevertheless clearly concerning. There is some overlap between hate crimes and terrorism since some hate crimes include the use of violence and are intended to have a broad psychological impact. However, many hate crimes were excluded from the dataset for their lack of premeditation or their low level of violence. This brief also does not include many cases of other forms of civil disturbance or criminal activity, such as rioting, street violence, mass shootings, and economic sabotage. Even though some instances of these activities do meet the definition of terrorism and are included in the dataset, in many cases the perpetrators lacked political goals, explicitly avoided harming people, did not premeditate their attacks, or did not seek to have a broader psychological effect.
Using this definition, CSIS compiled and analyzed a dataset of 725 terrorist attacks and plots in the United States between January 1, 1994, and April 30, 2024.7 The dataset includes information such as incident date, location, target and location type, weapon used, and fatalities, as well as perpetrator age, sex, ideology, group affiliation, and current or former affiliation with the military or law enforcement. A full methodology and codebook for the dataset is linked at the end of this brief.
The Terrorist Threat Against Government Targets
Over the past four years, terrorist attacks and plots in the United States have primarily been directed at government, military, and law enforcement targets. As shown in Figure 1, from January 2020 to April 2024, 50 attacks or plots have been directed at such targets. This is followed by 38 incidents targeting private individuals, 19 targeting religious institutions, and 13 targeting demonstrators.
