Few Americans trust the Secret Service after a gunman nearly killed Trump, an AP-NORC poll finds

Most Americans doubt the Secret Service’s ability to keep presidential candidates safe after last month’s attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life, a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds.

Only about 3 in 10 Americans are extremely or very confident that the Secret Service can protect the presidential candidates from violence before the election, the poll found. The survey also found that about 7 in 10 Americans believe the Secret Service bore at least a moderate degree of responsibility for the assassination attempt.

The law enforcement agency charged with protecting presidents for more than a century is under intense scrutiny after a shooter came within 150 yards of Trump and fired multiple rounds from an AR-style rifle. Trump was wounded in one ear, but came within inches of death.

The poll was conducted after the resignation of director Kimberly Cheatlewho faced intense questioning during a live-streamed congressional hearing last week, during which she gave evasive answers. New acting director Ronald Rowe said earlier this week that he was ashamed after the July 13 attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, saying he found it indefensible that the roof the shooter was on was not secured.

The poll found that Americans were most likely to say that political divisions in the US were “to a large extent” responsible for the attempted assassination.

Half of American adults say so, while about 4 in 10 say the Secret Service bears a major responsibility, and about 4 in 10 say the widespread availability of guns is largely responsible.

Democrats were much more likely to blame the availability of guns, while Republicans were more likely to blame the Secret Service.

Roger Berg, a 70-year-old farmer from Keota, Iowa, plans to vote for Trump, the Republican nominee, in November. But he has expressed dismay that Republicans are blaming President Joe Biden for issues he says are beyond his control. Biden ended his reelection campaign eight days after the shooting and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee.

“The people who are all about politics, I wish they would just stop,” Berg said. “They’re putting it all on Biden, and I don’t believe in that.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are significantly more likely than either independents or Republicans to say that gun availability carries a great responsibility. Six-in-ten Democrats say this, compared with about a third of independents and 15% of Republicans.

Republican respondents were more likely than independents and Democrats to blame the Secret Service: About half of Republicans say the Secret Service bears a lot of responsibility, compared to about 4 in 10 Democrats and independents.

George Velasco, a 65-year-old Navy veteran from Tucson, Arizona, said he believed both the Secret Service and local law enforcement were to blame, along with poor communication and a lack of proper planning. The acting director of the Secret Service said earlier this week that it was unfortunate that local law enforcement did not alert his agency before the shooting that an armed person had been spotted on a roof, while acknowledging that the Secret Service assumed state and local police were present.

“It was like the Secret Service expected these guys to know what to do,” Velasco said. “It was a very small area, a small town. How did they expect them to know how to prepare for something as big as that rally?”

The poll found that half of Americans believe local law enforcement in Pennsylvania bore at least a moderate amount of responsibility for the attempted murder, though only about 2 in 10 said there was “a lot” of responsibility.

The Secret Service was first established as part of the Treasury Department to investigate counterfeiting of U.S. currency during the Civil War. According to records, the agency began providing informal protection to presidents in 1894. Congress requested the Secret Service to provide protection to U.S. presidents following the assassination of William McKinley in 1901.

Protection was extended to the immediate families of the president, president-elect and vice presidents after a White House police officer was shot and killed while protecting President Harry S. Truman in 1950. It was later extended to former presidents in 1965. After the 1968 assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, Congress authorized protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates.

About a third of Americans are confident that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, will conduct a full and fair investigation into the assassination attempt. About a third are somewhat confident, and about 3 in 10 have little or no confidence.

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The poll of 1,143 adults was conducted July 25-29, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.