This weekend’s violence in Minnesota marked a grim milestone in a growing wave of politically motivated attacks on government officials in the United States.
The attack, in which a suspect impersonating a police officer killed a prominent Minnesota state legislator and wounded another in separate shootings at their homes, is the latest and the deadliest in a rising wave of political violence targeting politicians and other government figures in the United States.
According to CSIS data, between 2016 and 2025, there were 25 attacks and plots targeting elected officials, political candidates, judges, political staff, and other government employees motivated by extremist partisan beliefs. By contrast, only two such incidents were documented in the more than two preceding decades. The number of politically motivated attacks and plots against government figures in just the past five years is more than triple those in the previous 25 years combined.
