The majority of Democrats agreed that “extreme political rhetoric” was a key catalyst in the Sept. 10 assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, according to an NBC News poll released Monday.
In the newly released poll, 54% of Democrats said “extreme political rhetoric used by some in the media and by political leaders was an important contributor” to Kirk’s slaying. Meanwhile, 73% of Republicans and 53% of independent voters — about the same percentage as Democrats’ — said the same, according to the survey.
Of those polled, another 28% said they “feel more this [Kirk’s assassination] is an incident caused by a disturbed person.” By comparison, only 4% of respondents said that they thought both of the two previously mentioned options on the poll contributed to Kirk’s assassination, the survey showed.
Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray’s office alleged in September that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old charged with assassinating Kirk, had engraved phrases such as “hey fascist! CATCH!” on his bullet casings. Robinson reportedly also had a transgender boyfriend.
Additionally, a Public First poll released on Nov. 3 showed that 24% of U.S. voters think there are circumstances in which political violence is able to be justified, while 64% said it is never acceptable, Politico first reported.
Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, suggested during a Nov. 6 interview on the “Wide Awake Podcast” that he was unsure that Kirk was killed due to his political beliefs.
“He wasn’t necessarily shot for his beliefs,” Biden said. “He was shot because he was one of the loudest people speaking out there … I don’t know whether Charlie Kirk was shot because of what he believed or whether he was shot by a disaffected white male, an incel that had ready access to a high caliber rifle and the capacity to be able to shoot a kill shot from over 200 yards from a prone from a roof and somehow disassembled the rifle before he got off the roof without it being able to [be] seen on video.”
NBC News’ new poll surveyed 1,000 registered U.S. voters from Oct. 24 to 28 via a mix of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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