PRRI Poll: 15% of Americans Agreed With a Core QAnon Claim

Originally published 2021-10-21.

In a survey published in May 2021, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that 15% of American adults agreed that the US government, media and financial worlds “are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.” That sentence is the core of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Another 15% agreed that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence” to save the country. A later PRRI survey that autumn found agreement had edged up, not down.

The numbers are striking, but they need careful reading. Below we look at what PRRI actually asked, who agreed, what the figures do and do not mean, and why researchers took them seriously.

What the PRRI survey asked

PRRI, a non-partisan research group based in Washington, D.C., ran the survey online between 8 and 30 March 2021. It reached 5,625 adults: 5,149 through Ipsos’s probability-based KnowledgePanel and 476 through opt-in panels. The stated margin of error for the national results was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

Respondents were shown three statements drawn from QAnon messaging and asked whether they agreed or disagreed:

• The “pedophile” statement: a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles controls government, media and finance. 15% agreed, 82% disagreed.
• The “storm” statement: a storm is coming that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders. 20% agreed.
• The violence statement: because things have gone so far off track, true patriots may have to use violence to save the country. 15% agreed.

PRRI combined the three answers into a scale. People who agreed with all of them were labelled “QAnon believers” (14% of adults), those who rejected all three “QAnon rejecters” (40%), and everyone in between “doubters” (46%).

Who agreed: party, media and religion

Agreement was far from evenly spread. On the pedophile statement, 23% of Republicans agreed, compared with 14% of independents and 8% of Democrats. The violence statement split the same way: 28% of Republicans, 13% of independents and 7% of Democrats.

Media habits mattered even more than party. Among Americans who said they trusted far-right outlets such as One America News or Newsmax most, 40% agreed with the pedophile statement and 42% with the violence statement. Among those who trusted Fox News most, the figures were 18% and 27%. For viewers of broadcast networks, public television, CNN or MSNBC, agreement with the pedophile claim was in single digits or close to it.

The survey also tested a pandemic rumour. Overall, 9% of Americans agreed that the COVID-19 vaccine contains a surveillance microchip tied to the “mark of the beast” from biblical prophecy. Among QAnon believers that rose to 39%, against 6% of doubters and 1% of rejecters. PRRI’s report also broke the results down by religious affiliation, and the mix of prophecy, good-versus-evil storytelling and devoted followers led some commentators to describe QAnon as behaving like a new religious movement.

What QAnon is and where it came from

QAnon began on 28 October 2017, when an anonymous user calling themselves “Q Clearance Patriot” started posting on 4chan’s politics board. The name hinted that the poster held Q clearance, a real US Department of Energy security clearance for top-secret nuclear information. Q’s cryptic posts, or “drops,” claimed that Donald Trump was secretly fighting a cabal of elite child abusers and that a day of reckoning, “the storm,” was near.

Q soon moved to 8chan, which was taken offline in 2019 after it was linked to several mass shootings and later returned as 8kun. From those message boards the ideas spread to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and then into rallies, campaign events and some election campaigns. In 2020 Facebook and Twitter began removing QAnon accounts and limiting hashtags such as #SaveTheChildren that the movement had adopted.

None of the central claims has ever been supported by evidence. Predicted mass arrests never happened, and specific dates for “the storm” passed without incident.

How to read a “15% of Americans” headline

Survey figures like this one are easy to over- or under-state. A few points help:

• Agreement with one statement is not membership. Agreeing that elites are run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles is a strong signal, but it does not mean every one of those people identifies with QAnon, follows Q’s posts, or accepts every related claim.
• The two 15% groups are not the same people. One 15% agreed with the pedophile statement; a separate 15% agreed with the violence statement. They overlap, but it is wrong to say 15% of Americans believe both.
• Wording shapes answers. Agree/disagree formats tend to draw some agreement from respondents who are unsure or not paying close attention, which can push numbers up somewhat. Researchers debate how much.
• Even small shares are large numbers. With more than 250 million US adults, 15% still means tens of millions of people.

Why the violence finding worried researchers

The finding that drew most attention was not the bizarre theology but the acceptance of political violence. It came only weeks after 6 January 2021, when a crowd of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol while Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s election victory. QAnon slogans, flags and clothing were widespread in the crowd, and several of those later charged had promoted the movement online. People died during and after the attack, and many police officers were injured.

PRRI’s results suggested the mood behind that day had not disappeared. Its American Values Survey, published in November 2021, found agreement had risen: 18% agreed with the pedophile statement, 18% with the violence statement and 21% with the storm statement. Among Republicans who trusted far-right news most, 40% agreed that violence might be necessary.

Why people are drawn to conspiracy theories

Psychologists who study conspiracy belief describe a few common drivers. People feel more drawn to them in times of uncertainty and loss of control, such as a pandemic or a contested election. Conspiracy theories offer a clear villain and a sense of special knowledge. Online communities then reward participation, turning “research” into a social activity. QAnon also borrowed older themes, especially the medieval-rooted “blood libel” and the Satanic panic of the 1980s, which made its stories feel familiar.

For anyone worried about a friend or relative, researchers and former believers tend to give similar advice: stay connected, ask open questions rather than mocking, focus on shared values, and avoid trying to win every factual argument in one go.

QAnon is easily America's fastest-growing religion, a new @PRRIpoll poll finds.

A whopping 15% of Americans believe that their country is controlled by a "group of Satan-worshipping paedophiles" and that "true patriots" may have to resort to violence.https://t.co/T5wXn6Gqsr pic.twitter.com/HxKwvYqjZI

— Khaled Diab (@DiabolicalIdea) May 27, 2021

A May 2021 tweet by writer Khaled Diab summarising the PRRI findings.

Sources: PRRI, “Understanding QAnon’s Connection to American Politics, Religion, and Media Consumption” (May 2021); PRRI, 2021 American Values Survey (November 2021); Wikipedia: QAnon; first reported for this site via IFLScience.