Violent threats, once concentrated in Washington, are increasing against local public servants, new data shows

Matt McCaffery was a relatively unknown GOP chair in suburban Pennsylvania when police showed up at his door last year after an anonymous tip accused the Marine veteran of holding his family hostage — a swatting incident meant to terrorize him and his family just hours after he endorsed Kamala Harris for president.

“If it could happen to me, small-town Matt McCaffery, it can happen to you,” said the former chairman of the Upper Merion Republican Committee. 

The hoax call was just one of nearly 2,000 records of threats to local officials identified over the past decade in new data from the Impact Project and the Public Service Alliance. CBS News received exclusive access to the dataset, dubbed the “Security Map,” ahead of its public release. It compiles more than a decade of cases from court filings, news reports and academic databases.

The findings show that violent threats targeting public officials have surged across all levels of government and political parties. At the same time, the threat landscape has “fundamentally changed,” according to researchers.

“We’re seeing not only an increase in volume, but also an expansion in who’s being targeted,” Abby André, executive director and cofounder of the Impact Project, said in a statement. “A decade ago, threats were concentrated at the federal level. Today, school board members, county clerks, and even mail carriers face similar dangers.”

While federal officials remain the most frequent targets, threats against local officials are growing and now make up roughly one-third of all documented threats, researchers found.

“That’s what we see in the map. The threats facing public servants — they span the entire country,” said Isa Ulloa, founder of the Public Service Alliance.

Threats were recorded in every state, with roughly a quarter of incidents concentrated in the seven battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Michigan. And for every physical threat, researchers found nine verbal or online threats — fueling what they call a dangerous chilling effect. Both Democrats and Republicans were targeted at almost equal rates, with 58% of reviewed threats affecting Democrats. 

Ulloa isn’t just measuring the problem — her organization also offers security and privacy tools for the nation’s roughly 40 million current and former public officials, including McCaffery, who is considering another run for office.

“Who wants to run for public office if your family’s being put in threat, even at the local level where most of the decisions in your life are being made? If they’re too scared to do it, we’re not gonna have anybody run,” McCaffery said.