The Frontier Center conducted a twelve-week survey of voter beliefs starting on the week of January 29th and ending during the week of April 21st. Over the course of the survey period, we questioned 12,585 individuals to assess their current, past, and future beliefs on politics.

In this analysis, we concentrated on examining the thoughts of respondents who replied that they feel politically persecuted. As reference, on average, 61.6% of the total number of respondents felt persecuted while 79.6% identified as conservative and only 57.3% considered themselves Republicans.

In this analysis, we concentrated on examining the thoughts of respondents who replied that they feel politically persecuted.  As reference, on average, 61.6% of the total number of respondents felt persecuted while 79.6% identified as conservative and only 57.3% considered themselves Republicans. 

Who are the politically persecuted?

It is a natural conclusion to assume that many of the respondents who felt persecuted are drawn from the conservative and Republican voting base however, this is only partially true.  We found that, on average over the twelve weeks, 27% of those who feel persecuted gave their current political affiliation as Independent, 59% Republican, and only 1% Democrat.  In future elections, 44% of these voters plan to vote straight Republican, 37% plan to vote mostly Republican while 10% will vote for independent candidates.

We also found an interesting break among the various age cohorts with 92.0% of persecuted survey respondents being 45 years old or older. 

Almost 2/3 of those sampled, 64.6%, are male, while roughly 1/3, 33.1%, are female replied that they feel persecuted.  The total does not sum to 100.0% because in the demographic type questions asked, approximately 2.3% of respondents left several questions blank.

Another surprising result found 71.5% of the persecuted respondents are white/Caucasian while 22.3% identify as possessing multiple ethnicities.  Only 1.9% of persecuted respondents are Hispanic and the percentage of American Indians, 0.8%, slightly outpaced African Americans at 0.7%. 

Persecuted respondents typically live in the suburban areas of the country, 52.3%, followed by 32.7% living in the rural parts.  Only 12.8% live in urban areas.  This somewhat mirrors the age cohort break of over 92% of the respondents being 45 years old or older. 

Politics and the Persecuted

The persecuted within our sampling exhibited some very strong opinions on several important subjects including American institutions and politics.  Over 97% felt there is a need for election integrity following the 2020 General Election and 88.8% believe that there is a threat of election fraud.

Taking a closer look, 96.4% of the respondents expressed extreme negativism with the Democrats.  Similarly, 94.9% are very negative on President Biden.  However, the same respondents are divided in their support, or displeasure, with the Republican Party and with President Trump.  Only 78.1 are very supportive of former President Trump.

Early in the sampling period, respondents indicated that they believed that there is a need for a third party.  However, by the fifth week the trend reversed.  Readers may recall the numerous news stories about President Trump establishing the Patriot Party only to have those rumors squashed.  This, apparently, was picked up within our surveying.

Over 95% of our survey participants expressed negative sentiments about Congress.  Similarly, 61.1% are negative towards their state governments and nearly half are negative towards their local government. 

Congress earned its low marks on several key issues.  Ninety-five percent, 95.5%, of respondents strongly disagree with the impeachment of former President Trump.  Almost the same percentage, 95.0%, strongly disagree with statements about eliminating the Electoral College and 89.8% disagree with Democrat Senators’ efforts to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate.  Nearly 80% of respondents disagree with efforts to restrict hate speech.  Finally, over 88.3% agree with the elimination of Dominion voting machines.

Is There Respect of Traditional Political Institutions Among the Persecuted?

Once again, the persecuted members of our surveys are quite vociferous in their opinions on the political institutions of the United States.  While the Supreme Court of the United States is part of the judicial branch of our federal government, it is often viewed as an institution operating separate from the political concerns of Congress and the White House.  The persecuted nearly universally expressed negative views of the Supreme Court and those responding extremely negatively increased over the twelve-week sampling period.  Only 17.4% were positive towards the court and 10.5% were neutral.

Our persecuted members were also negative towards public schools, 82.1%, media, 98.3%, and big tech, 98.5%.  However, with faith organizations, this group has a slightly more positive impression though responses were not as uniform as in other institutions reviewed above. 

We found similar response rates when they were asked about trying to unify Americans and if they believed unity with other Americans is possible. 

Echoing and reenforcing the believes above on Americans and unity, 86.9% of the politically persecuted respondents are not optimistic with America’s immediate future and 79.5% believe that the United States is headed to a Civil War.  The majority, 76.6% don’t view white supremacy as a threat; however, 92.9% view Black Lives Matters as a threat to the institutions of the United States.  They also equally, 94.4%, view Marxism and Antifa as threats to the Nation’s security.  They consider, 85.7%, disinformation or “fake news” as a threat too.  Geopolitically, they view China, 93.9%, and Russia, 81.2%, as a threats.  Finally, 59.3% of the respondents replied that they agreed with statement of the threat associated with questioning American institutions; however, 27.8% disagreed with the same statement.  The rest remained neutral.