Most Americans Say White Nationalism Poses A Threat To The U.S.

Most Americans believe white nationalism poses at least a somewhat serious threat to the country, a HuffPost/YouGov poll finds. The survey was taken in the wake of the El Paso, Texas, shooting, carried out by a gunman with white nationalist sentiments, and close to the second anniversary of 2017′s violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A 56% majority of Americans say that white nationalism poses a somewhat or very serious threat to the U.S., similar to the 57% who said it posed such a threat following the Charlottesville rally, and up from the 46% who said the same last August. Thirty-seven percent currently call white nationalism a “very” serious threat, up from 32% immediately following Charlottesville and a low of 26% last year.

There’s a significant racial gap in the level of concern: Black Americans are 27 percentage points likelier than white Americans to say it’s a very serious threat. But there’s an even broader partisan gap ― one that’s widened in the past two years, almost entirely from rising concerns among Democrats. In 2017, Democrats were 30 percentage points likelier than Republicans to call white nationalism a very serious threat. Today, that divide has grown to 49 points.