Data from polling group YouGov, collected just before last year’s US presidential election, found a deep split between Americans over whether Donald Trump was a fascist and an extremist.

The data showed that strong majorities of Democrats believed he was both.

Sixty-five percent of Democrats believed Trump was an extremist, while 61% believed he was also a fascist. For Republicans the numbers were 2% on both counts.

The perception of Trump as a fascist and extremist, whose hold on power in America was therefore seen by some as a fundamental threat to the republic, has gained new importance over the past week following the murder of Charlie Kirk, with reports from law-enforcement agencies saying that the word “fascist” was scrawled on some of the ammunition used in his assassination.

A number of American leaders and media outlets have also told the public that Mr Trump was a fascist and compared him to leaders of Nazi Germany.