Communities that recently experienced mass shootings tend to show only a small change in voting patterns, according to analysis done by The Washington Post.
The Post studied voting in seven communities that have had a major mass shooting in recent years: Newtown, Connecticut; San Bernardino, California; Orlando, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Sutherland Springs, Texas; Parkland, Florida; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The newspaper compared voting in those cities to how people elsewhere in the state voted in presidential and gubernatorial elections both before and after the shootings.
- Newtown shifted 16 percent towards Democrats
- San Bernardino shifted 7 percent towards Democrats
- Orlando shifted 12 percent towards Democrats
- Las Vegas shifted one percent towards Democrats
- Sutherland Springs shifted one percent towards Republicans
- Parkland shifted three percent towards Democrats
- Pittsburgh shifted two percent towards Democrats
“There is no aggregate movement among everyone,” said Brian F. Schaffner, a Tufts University political science professor and one of the authors of a study that found that mass shootings did not lead to a “significant or substantively meaningful” affect on the political views in the communities affected.
“But we saw some evidence Republicans become more conservative and Democrats become more liberal,” Schaffner said.
“You would think, indeed, because everyone in these places knows people who know people affected by this, that that personal experience would magnify the impact,” said author Robert J. Spitzer, who has published five books about gun control politics. “But my general assumption is those communities’ larger focus generally really isn’t about politics, and it really does not profoundly change local politics.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.