April 14, 2025

TRUMP SUBURBAN RAGE:

The Conclusive findings on WHO STORMED THE US CAPITOL and Why It Matters

Analysis of the Complete Set of Individuals Charged—and Pardoned—for January 6, 2021

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Download the full report here

On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned every person charged and commuted every sentence for people prosecuted by the federal government for their role in the unprecedented assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.  At a time when political violence has become disturbingly normal in America, these presidential pardons go beyond re-writing history – they are the most extreme act in US history by a sitting American president to legitimate acts of political violence that were in large part carried out in his name and for his political purposes.   As such, the pardons inherently entail risks of more acts of political violence in the future, both among the J6ers themselves and others who may be emboldened by the knowledge that an American president has used the powers of that office to protect those acting violently for political purposes in line with the president’s goals.  

This report presents conclusive findings on “who” stormed the US Capitol and why they say they did it.  Since the January 6 assault on the US Capitol, many have wondered about the role of white rural rage, far right militia groups, and other factors involved in the most serious domestic attack on the US Capitol in US history.   Answers are important, because they raise important implications about the possibilities for political violence in the future.  The findings show that the possibilities are wider and more concerning than many may now appreciate.    

To explore this, the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats has collected data on the demographic characteristics of the entire set of individuals charged with a crime for their actions during the breach of the Capitol. This involved detailed review of over 100,000 pages of court documents, media reports, and social media posts with the assistance of large research teams, covering all those arrested and charged with Jan 6 offenses from January 6, 2021 to January 17, 2025 when the prosecutions ended.   Accordingly, this report likely represents the final and most definitive research on “who” stormed the US Capitol on January 6 now available anywhere.   

This study of 1,576 Americans found the following seven findings:   

1. January 6 was not a peaceful protest.

• Over 600 (39%) were charged with violent felonies, including assaulting police officers.
• 371 were convicted of these charges through guilty pleas or at trial.

2. January 6 was violent, but only a fraction were members of existing violent groups.

• 10% were members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other militia groups.
• The largest violent group, the Proud Boys, comprised 5% of the J6ers.
• 75% of those charged with violent felonies were not members of violent groups.
• Overall, 90% were not affiliated with violent groups.

3. The J6ers are very different from right-wing extremists of the past.  Compared to federally charged right-wing extremists between 2015 and 2020, the J6ers are:

• Much less likely to be young (36% were under 35, versus 61% for RW extremists).
• Much less likely to be unemployed (8%, versus 25% for RW extremists).
• Much less likely to be in a militia (10%, versus 40% for RW extremists).

4. Many J6ers had good jobs and college education.

• 39% had white college jobs (e.g., CEOs, doctors, lawyers, engineers, government employees).
• 22% owned their own businesses with employees (e.g., flower shops, car dealerships).
• 29% had college or post graduate degrees.

5. January 6 was not an expression of rural rage.

• 85% of J6ers came from urban or suburban counties, while only 15% from rural counties where Trump political support was the strongest.
• 51% of J6ers came from counties won by Joe Biden in 2020. 
• The largest pools of J6ers came from New York, California, Texas and Florida.  The first two are widely considered “Blue” states. In the latter two, the J6ers came from the most urban parts of the states, i.e. from the most racially and politically diverse parts.

6. The J6ers were much like Trump voters in 2020 on key demographic factors:

• 92% of J6ers were white (versus 85% Trump 2020 voters)
• 85% of J6ers were urban/suburban (versus 80% of Trump 2020 voters)
• 29% of J6ers were college educated (versus 32% of Trump 2020 voters)

7. The J6ers were intensely loyal to Trump and expressed a perceived patriotic duty to answer the call of the sitting president. Reviewing public statements by J6ers we found:

• 54% expressed personal loyalty to Trump (including that the election was stolen from him)
• 52% said they acted out of a patriotic duty. 

These findings have disturbing implications for the future.   January 6 was an overwhelmingly mainstream phenomenon, and many of the J6ers had good jobs, suburban homes, and college degrees.  This means that the standard solutions to right wing extremism – provide better jobs, helping people leave militias, offering resources for better lives in general and exposure to more diverse life-styles and people – are unlikely to matter as much with the new era as in the past.  The findings suggest that mass political violence may become an uncomfortably normal feature of American politics, especially now that presidential pardons surely increase the perceived legitimacy such actions.

The report below explains the findings in more detail.

Since mid-January, 2021, CPOST has collected and analyzed the demographic data, political geography, and other salient aspects of every individual charged by the federal government for offenses related to the assault on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.   For this purpose, CPOST has conducted this research on an on-going basis, and produced numerous articles, reports and presentations[1] based on this data that covers dozens of variables and aggregation of information in all publicly available court documents (such as criminal indictments, statements of fact, and sentencing memoranda), media stories on the individuals (many local newspapers have run detailed stories on the individuals), and social media posts by the individuals.   This research has been carried out with the assistance of large research teams, working four quarters a year from early 2021 through early 2025, involving multiple layers of data collection, verification, aggregation, and analysis. 

In this report, we provide the results for 1,576 individuals, the complete set of individuals arrested and charged for federal offenses related to January 6 (not including Donald Trump) from January 6, 2021 to January 17, 2025 when the prosecutions ended.   These individuals came from all 50 states plus Washington DC, with the largest pools from New York and California (“Blue” states) and Texas and Florida (“Red” states).

The 1,576 charged do not include the roughly 400 people arrested but not charged (these are often referred to in the media as the “grandmas” with little connection to the violence).  Accordingly, they are a large fraction of the total who illegally entered the Capitol building itself (approximately 2000, according to the Capitol’s cell phone tracking data) and only a small fraction of those illegally on the Capitol grounds (estimated as some 10,000), the vast majority of whom were not arrested or charged. 

This report is an exhaustive examination of all publicly available sources, with the final and most definitive research on “who” stormed the US Capitol on January 6 now available anywhere.   The data comes from the over 100,000 pages of publicly available court documents as well as vast social media posts and media stories related to the complete set of those charged with January 6 offenses. 

The report presents our seven main findings.   The first five challenge common misconceptions about the profile of those charged for January 6, while the last two show powerful evidence for the key characterizations that have not been highlighted in most commentary and studies of the subject.

In a Fox News interview the week before he would be sworn in as vice president of the United States, JD Vance proclaimed, “if you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.” One of the most important findings about the J6ers charged by the Justice Department and pardoned by President Trump is just how violent they really were. Violence was extraordinarily common on January 6.

The data shows that 617 of the charged J6ers (nearly 40%) were charged with violent felonies, including assaulting police officers, engaging in acts of physical violence, and civil disorder.  Of these, 371 either pleaded guilty to violent charges or were found guilty of violent charges at trial. A small number—37—pleaded guilty to lesser charges. 209—one-third of those charged with violent felonies and 15% of all charged J6ers—did not go to trial before President Trump halted all January 6-related prosecutions.

It is important not to underrate the impact of non-violent participation.

Whether charged with a violent offense or a lesser charge, the charged J6ers combined to make January 6 a fundamentally violent event that had as its goal the overturning of the 2020 election to keep Donald Trump – who lost the election – in power. Many of them, while they did not personally commit acts of violence, supported those acts being committed by others among the J6ers. As seen from the quotes above, all from people who weren’t charged with violent crimes, there was plenty of support for outright civil war.

Among his first acts as president, Donald Trump pardoned all 1,576 charged J6ers, violent and non-violent alike.

The image of the J6ers is often dominated by pictures of men wearing body armor and masks, and the story often involves people like Enrique Tarrio and Stewart Rhodes, from the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers respectively, but only 10% of those present had an affiliation with a militant organization.

While the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers played a visible role on January 6, the importance of their role should not be overstated: 90% of the J6ers were not members of an extremist group. Had these 90% not been present, it is unlikely the small number of Proud Boys and other militants could have overwhelmed the Capitol’s defenses and breached the building. The outcome at the Capitol would have been extremely different.

Importantly, the J6ers in militant groups account for a fraction of the violent felony charges. Of the J6ers charged with committing an act of violence, the vast majority – 85%! – were not members of a militia group.

One general finding is how different the J6ers were from right-wing extremist perpetrators charged for acts political violence in the years prior to January 6. The profile of these kinds of offenders is well known—and the J6ers do not match it.

We compared the J6ers to perpetrators of right-wing political violence (RWEX) prosecuted by the federal government from 2015 to 2020.  The J6ers were considerably older, with 63% over the age of 35 (compared to only 39% of RWEX). They were also significantly more likely to have a college degree, and less likely to be unemployed. Overall, they fit more closely an image of a working professional than they do the image of a right-wing political radical.

Similarly, they were less likely to have a criminal record and less likely to be a member of a militant group. They were also less likely to have a history of prior military service, something that is disturbingly common among RWEX generally. Even though the military histories of the J6ers has gotten disproportionate media coverage, had they been more like traditional RWEX perpetrators, we would have anticipated many more veterans than we observe.

Overall, this paints a picture of the J6ers representing something new in American political life, distinct from prior examples of RWEX violence.

Overwhelmingly, the J6ers were employed. For those whom their status prior to January 6 could be established from court documents and public records, 86% held gainful employment. Another 3% were retired, and 3% were active students. Only 8% of the total were unemployed.

They represent broad economic diversity, a snapshot of the American workforce. 39% worked in a White-Collar job; 22% owned their own business. Employers include Google and Intel, and they owned companies such as McHugh Construction, Ameri-I-Can Ammo, and Matador Sport Fishing, among many others. There were doctors, attorneys, and architects, as well as plumbers, construction workers, and truck drivers.

Although unexpected, this is more understandable than might at first meet the eye.   January 6, 2021 was a national event, fell on a Wednesday, and involved over two weeks of preparation (since Donald Trump’s December 19, 2020 tweet calling for his supporters to attend).   Getting to Washington D.C. required travel and hotel accommodations for most charged J6ers, who came from all 50 stated including Alaska and Hawaii – nontrivial costs, most affordable to the gainfully employed.

Even so, the economic profile of the J6ers who stormed the Capitol remains very surprising in one important way:   These were not people with nothing to lose.  Most of them did have something very much to lose—and many of them lost a lot because of their actions, the subsequent media frenzy, and the criminal prosecutions that even their pardons will not be unable to restore.

5.1 J6ers came from the cities and the suburbs

One idea that people sometimes have about January 6 was that it was an expression of “White Rural Rage.” There’s no question that Trump’s electoral support as a proportion of the population was strongest in rural areas: According to Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman’s book of the same name, in 2016 people in purely rural counties voted for Trump at the highest rate, 63%, while people in purely urban counties did so at the lowest rate, 14%.

However, the people who came to January 6 were not a mass of angry rural farmers. Most of the J6ers were from Urban or Suburban areas of the country: Only 15% of all J6ers came from a rural county, while 54% came from some kind of urban county.

Of course, rural areas possess only a small fraction of the overall population of the United States. While Trump received proportionally fewer votes from urban counties than he did from rural counties, plenty of people in those urban counties did vote for Trump in 2020. So, is this finding the product of population density? The answer is no: Using the number of Trump voters as a baseline, we see that urban J6ers were significantly over-represented, while rural J6ers were significantly underrepresented

Strikingly, even accounting for population size, more people came from the cities and densest suburbs, and fewer came from rural areas. While Trump’s electoral support may be proportionally strongest in rural areas, there was plenty of urban and suburban rage among the J6ers.

5.2 J6ers came from counties that Biden won

Another way of conceptualizing the relationship between the J6ers and their home county is whether the county voted for Trump or for Biden in 2020. A slim majority of J6ers came from counties that were won by Biden in 2020.

5.3 J6ers came from diversifying counties

To better understand the reasons Jan6ers came to DC and stormed the capitol, we looked at conditions in their home counties to see if we could identify factors that predict higher rates of J6ers. We selected factors that scholars and political pundits have associated with strong support for Trump in the 2020 election. These factors are: (1) demographic change (measured as the decline in a county’s non-Hispanic white population from 2015 to 2020); (2) economic hardship (measured as the average county bankruptcy rate from 2015-2020); (3) the strength of local institutions (measured using the Social Capital Index); and (4) county rurality. We also include a county’s total population, local strength of Trump support (Trump 2020 vote share), and the distance to Washington (assuming greater distance imposes greater challenges for attending).

The results of our analysis is presented in the figure below, which shows the relative weight of each factor on the estimated rate of J6ers from a given county while holding the other factors constant. An estimate of 1 (indicated by the black line) indicates no effect, while estimates above 1 and below 1 indicate increased and decreased rates respectively. The estimate is given by the circle, and the width of the bars indicates confidence in the estimate (smaller bands mean higher confidence, and bands that cross 1 are not statistically significant).

The analysis finds that the strongest predictor of the rate of J6ers from a given county apart from a county’s overall population is the demographic change.  Higher rates of bankruptcy and increasing county rurality predict lower rates of J6ers, as does increasing distance from DC. The estimates for Social Capital and Trump 2020 vote share suggest these factors predict decreases as well, but their confidence bounds include 1 and so are not statistically distinguishable from having no effect.

Two conclusions follow from these results. First, consistent with the broader picture painted by our descriptive data, urban and economically stable counties produced J6ers at higher rates than their rural and economically challenged counterparts. Second, demographic change in the form of increasing local diversity presents a significant risk factor for future political violence, especially as demographic trends predict whites will no longer be the majority ethnic group in the U.S. in less than 20 years.

The core finding and most important takeaway of this analysis is that, as a group, those charged for their participation in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol look a lot like 2020 Trump voters, on most baseline demographic variables.

J6ers were very close to Trump voters overall in terms of how white, educated, rural, and employed they were. The difference in employment rate is largely because there were few J6ers who were retired (3% of J6ers were retired, while 13% of Trump voters were).

As extraordinary as January 6 was, the assault on American democracy emerged out of a mainstream political movement made up of ordinary Americans, predominantly from the urban and suburban parts of America. This is perhaps the most important takeaway from our research, because it suggests the risks of mass political violence is embedded in the American mainstream and not, as often portrayed, the result of violent groups. For even as such groups contributed to January 6, their presence at the Capitol was small and would have been easily repelled without the overwhelming presence of the mass of ordinary J6ers. 

For more than 900 of the J6ers, CPOST has examined all their available statements (in court documents, on social media, or in interviews) to determine what motivated them to act on January 6. For the 520 of them who had discussed their motives publicly, two were present for more than half of them: the patriotic duty to act, and a personal loyalty to Trump himself (including the belief that the election had been stolen from Trump).

Most of these statements were made in late 2020 (prior to January 6) or in early 2021 (often on January 6). A handful of statements were made in later interviews or during the judicial process, with the latest statements occurring in 2023. There was therefore no expectation that these statements could lead to pardons.

Since the pardons, prominent J6ers have made further statements of loyalty to Trump. Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, said “Trump literally gave me my life back.”  Should Trump call for something like January 6 again, they and others like them could be there, again.

As this report makes clear, January 6 was not simply the result of out-of-control militia groups or the usual right-wing perpetrators gathering for a “wild time” or “white rural rage” descending upon the US Capitol.   All these images have elements of truth, but they are relatively small elements in the overall picture of “who” stormed the US Capitol.   Rather, the overriding finding is that January 6 was the product of mainstream, well-off but otherwise largely “normal” Trump supporters who were intensely loyal to Trump.  

Indeed, the “normal” Trump supporters were likely decisive in the outcome.   Had the January 6th assault involved only the approximately 150 Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other militia members, then the approximately 200 Capitol Hill and Washington DC Police on station initially would likely have been more than sufficient to stop the assault in its tracks, likely at the outer perimeter fences and so the “storm” would not likely have reached the Capitol building itself.   However, what made the storm a “storm” was in fact the 90% who were not militia group members and who did overwhelm and break the police lines.   

Put differently, if were posit the counterfactual in which we take out the militia group members from the mob, then January 6 could well have happened anyway.   However, if we posit the absence of the 90% of the rioters that were the normal Trump supporters, then January 6 would likely have been just another minor disturbance and the entire US Congress then assembled to certify the election for Joe Biden would not have been fleeing for their lives, crowds would not have been hunting inside the building to hang Mike Pence, and virtually all that led up to this report would not have happened.

The main implications are more about the future than the past.   Although political scientists, sociologists and psychologists will undoubtedly explore this case for many years to understand its precise dynamics, the fact that January 6 was an overwhelmingly mainstream phenomenon, encompassing mainly “normal” and well-off Trump supporters suggests that mass, collective political violence itself in today’s America may be uncomfortably normal as well.

The report presents data on demographics and socio-economic characteristics of the individuals charged with participating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. and compares them to right-wing extremist violent offenders arrested between 2015 and 2020 as well as the US electorate and Trump voters in 2020. 

Below we describe the primary data sources used.

Charged J6er Data

The Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) conducted a comprehensive review of the 1576 individuals. The Department of Justice is pursuing up to 2000 cases of individuals who participated in the January 6 Capitol Insurrection. The cases are compiled from court records, department of justice records, and media reports.

To be included in the data, an individual must be charged by the Department of Justice with participating in the breach of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 to stop the certification of president elect Joseph Biden as the 46th president of the United States.

Our data contains 1,576 cases.  These include all 1,575 cases identified the Department of Justice with three exceptions.  We identified two cases not on the DOJ list and we do not include Donald Trump.

Data on the 2020 Electorate and Trump Voters

Our primary source on the 2020 electorate and Trump voters is the American National Election Survey (ANES). The ANES is a nationally representative survey fielded every four years around the presidential election and comprises interviews of the American electorate conducted over the phone and through the internet covering demographic information and political stance on a wide range of issues. The survey has been running since the 1948 election and is headed by political scientists at top institutions.

For this report we used the 2020 ANES data, which boasts over 15,000 respondents surveyed in the months pre- and post- the 2020 election. For data that had not yet been released from the 2020 survey, we used the 2016 ANES data. For the US electorate, the margin of error is <2% and for Trump voter subset, <3%.

Right Wing Extremist Violent Offender Data

We use CPOST’s database on right-wing extremist violent offenders for data on the demographic and socio-economic factors for this group. The database includes attackers and plotters with known racially extremist motives (so-called Racially/Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists, REMV).

The cases are drawn from established political violence databases by the (1) New America Foundation, (2) Global Terrorism Database, (3) the Anti-Defamation League, and (4) the New Jersey Homeland Security Yearly Reports. The timeframe for the data is January 2015 through July 2020.

To be included in the CPOST data, the case must (1) demonstrate clear ideology and (2) violent intent linked to REMV ideology. Common reasons for excluding a case include: (1) threats but no attack or plot; (2) non-ideological attacks by known REMVE actors (e.g., a domestic assault); (3) non-REMVE anti-government attacks or plots (e.g., by anarchists or Antifa).

Of the 307 possible events across the four databases, 87 involving 108 perpetrators were found to meet the criteria for inclusion. Demographic and socio-economic data was then collected for each of the 108 perpetrators, the basis for the analysis in this report.

Coding Occupation

There is no standard definition or set of defined categories for classifying occupations as blue- or white- collar. Drawing on Bureau of Labor Statistics definitions, we developed coding rules based on job types, level, and education that we applied to both the J6ers (based on the occupation description) and to the ANES (using the ANES’s occupation variable). For the J6ers coded as Business Owners, we created a new variable categorizing them into white and blue collar depending on public data on the size and nature of the business. The majority were classified as white collar. They were classified as blue collar only if their business was in a blue-collar industry and had few employees (less than 5), meaning the business owner was unlikely to be exclusively in a managerial position.

[1] Robert A. Pape and Keven Ruby, “The Capitol Rioters Aren’t Like Other Extremists,” The Atlantic, February 2, 2021; Robert A. Pape, “American Face of Insurrection: Analysis of Individuals Charged for Storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2021,” CPOST Report, January 5, 2022; Robert A. Pape, “Remorse or Double-Down? Those Who Stormed the Capitol Are Remorseful, But Do Not Repudiate Trump’s Big Lie,” Chicago, IL: Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST), September 14, 2022); “Patriotic Counter-Revolution: The Political Mindset That Stormed the Capitol,” CPOST Report, April 11, 2022; Robert A. Pape, Kyle D. Larson, and Keven G. Ruby, “The Political Geography of the January 6 Insurrectionists,” PS: Political Science & Politics 57, no. 3 (July 2024): 329–39; Robert A. Pape, “Bystanders or Active Participants:  The Surprisingly Violent ‘Non-Violent’ Offenders in the Capitol Hill Siege,” CPOST Report, January 15, 2025; Robert A. Pape, “Not Just Oath Keepers and Proud Boys: Meet the ‘Ordinary’ Violent Offenders of January 6, 2021,” CPOST Report, January 15, 2025).