Poll: Almost a third of US voters think a second civil war is coming soon

Ryan W. Miller | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption AG Jeff Sessions mocks border critics as 'lunatic fringe' In a speech to the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the need to enforce the country's immigration laws.

A war may be brewing within the United States, almost a third of voters say in a poll released Wednesday.

Amid widespread political polarization on issues like immigration and recent public confrontations of Trump administration officials, 31 percent of probable U.S. voters surveyed said they think "it's likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years."

Democrats at 37 percent were slightly more fearful of a second civil war than Republicans at 32 percent, the poll from Rasmussen Reports found.

While more than half thought it was unlikely the USA would see a second civil war soon, 59 percent of voters were still concerned that opponents of President Donald Trump's policies would resort to violence.

During former President Barack Obama's second year in office, a similar 53% of voters thought those who did not support his policies would turn to violence, according to Rasmussen.

Wednesday's poll also found 53 percent of voters were worried that those critical of the news media's Trump coverage would become violent.

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The poll comes as the Trump administration faces harsh backlash over a "zero tolerance" immigration policy that separated more than 2,000 children from their parents who stand accused of entering the United States illegally. Trump signed an executive order last week that aimed to end family separations while maintaining a his strict policy of criminally prosecuting immigrants crossing the border illegally.

Trump administration officials, including White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and White House adviser Stephen Miller, have faced public confrontation from political opponents protesting the immigration policy and others.

The survey by Rasmussen Reports polled 1,000 likely U.S. voters from June 21 to June 24 with a sampling error of 3 percentage points.

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