Americans most likely to see politics as safety risk, survey says

Americans are more likely than people in any other country to say politics poses the biggest threat to their personal safety, according to a new survey.

The 2026 Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll, conducted by Gallup across 140 countries, found that 10 percent of U.S. adults named politics as the greatest risk to their daily safety—up sharply from 6 percent in both 2021 and 2023. By comparison, the global average was just 1 percent.

That puts the U.S. on par with countries like Hungary, where 9 percent named politics as the greatest risk to their daily safety, as well as countries including Serbia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Russia, Myanmar, Spain and Israel, many of which have authoritarian leaders or have seen political violence.

The survey found that Americans across the political spectrum are increasingly worried about the country’s deepening divisions, even if they disagree over who’s to blame.

Republicans largely pointed the finger at Democrats, while Democrats blamed the Trump administration.

But respondents on both sides said the country’s deepening partisan divide has become a major source of anxiety.

“I would have to say the state of polarization of the American people,” one 54-year-old Republican man said, when asked about the greatest risk to his safety.

An independent respondent, a 42-year-old man, pointed to “political extremism,” adding: “I don’t have a lot of personal risk, but I do feel the biggest risk is people that are fanatical about their position and that they could be violent.”

A 69-year-old Democratic woman said, “The political situation has a lot to do with the fact whether if I am safe or not. I am concerned where we’re going or might go.”

Overall, the United States was the only nation surveyed where more people viewed politics as a greater threat to their safety than their own health.

But despite the political anxiety, Americans still identified road accidents as the biggest overall threat to their safety, followed by crime and violence.

The findings reflect previous Gallup surveys which have painted a similarly bleak picture of the state of politics in the United States.

In 2025, 33 percent of Americans said politics and government were the country’s biggest problem—far above the global median of 8 percent.

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.

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