With the Democratic Party out of power and the Left’s dominance over American institutions facing severe challenges from the Trump administration, left-wing extremists have resorted to violence at rates unseen in decades, according to a new non-partisan study.
Left-wing terror plots and attacks, as a percentage of all terror plots and attacks, reached a record high in the first half of 2025, according to a non-partisan Center for Strategic and International Studies study released Thursday. If the trend persists, this year will see the highest number of left-wing terror plots and attacks on U.S. soil in more than three decades.
Leftist terrorism made up nearly 45 percent of all terrorism thus far in 2025, an increase of over 20 percent from last year.
Through July 4, 2025 — a time period which excludes the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the attack this week on the Dallas ICE facility — there have been five left-wing terror attacks and plots in the U.S.
Left-wing terrorist attacks in 2025 outnumber those committed by the far-right for the first time in 30 years, due both to the rise in left-wing violence and a decline in right-wing violence. The study — which relied on 750 terror attacks and plots from January 1, 1994 to July 4 of this year — came to that conclusion despite leaving out a significant number of leftist incidents due to its specific definition of terrorism and the time frame applied.
CSIS defines terrorism as “the deliberate use or threat of premeditated violence by nonstate actors with the intent to achieve political goals by creating a broad psychological impact.” It connects leftist terrorism to a variety of ideologies including anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, black nationalism, LGBT ideology, environmentalism, animal rights, and socialist and communist viewpoints.
The ideological classification of perpetrators can be difficult and the incidents of terrorism measured in the study are not linked by the authors to mainstream views within the Democratic or Republican parties.
All of the leftist terrorist attacks and plots measured in the study are attributed to either anti-government extremism or partisan extremism. Most leftist terrorist incidents since 2016 have been motivated by those two forms of extremism, with the exception of the surge of violent attacks against pro-life targets in summer 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The CSIS study comes two weeks after a left-wing gunman assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk in broad daylight during an event at Utah Valley University. The suspect, Tyler Robinson, texted his transgender roommate that he killed Kirk because he could no longer tolerate Kirk’s “hatred,” authorities revealed upon charging him. Robinson became more political in recent years, especially with supporting LGBT causes, after growing up in a conservative Utah household.
Another notable act of violence left out of the CSIS study is transgender gunman Robin Westman’s mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minnesota. Westman killed two Catholic children and wounded numerous others by shooting through the window of the Catholic church affiliated with the school. Westman carried out the attack during mass and deliberately targeted the parish. His YouTube videos and manifesto showed Westman’s anti-Christian viewpoints and
Additionally, the CSIS study excludes leftist violence against Tesla vehicles and facilities to protest billionaire Elon Musk. Those attacks are classified as cases of economic vandalism rather than terrorism. Similarly, the study excludes three high-profile anti-Israel terrorist attacks, the arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s (D) home, the shooting that killed two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., and the firebombing attack on peaceful pro-Israel demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado. All of those incidents are categorized as ethno-nationalist violence rather than leftist terrorism. Militant opposition to the U.S. role in supporting Israel’s war in Gaza is typically a leftist position, but not exclusively.
Likewise, CSIS’s research leaves out violent leftist demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities because the level of violence does not reach the study’s definition of terrorism. Leftists have regularly committed acts of violence against ICE agents throughout the year. The anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles over the summer were the most prominent demonstration of leftist violence against ICE.
Earlier this week, an anti-ICE gunman attacked a Dallas ICE facility, killing at least one detainee and injuring two others. Authorities said the gunman used an app that tracked ICE activity and sought to cause “real terror” among agents. The shooting happened days after a suspect opened fire at an ABC station in Sacramento, California to protest the network’s since-reversed decision to drop late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show. The shooter had a note in his vehicle with criticism of Trump administration officials and an apparent reference to the Kirk assassination.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, the Trump administration has promised to crackdown on leftist domestic terrorism. President Trump signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization because of its violent, anarchist activities.
Trump’s Justice Department is in the process of investigating leftist billionaire George Soros’s philanthropic empire for its role in funding violent left-wing activist groups. Soros’s network, the Open Society Foundations, have adamantly denied funding domestic terrorism and accused the Trump administration of conducting politically motivated attacks.