Support for Black Lives Matter dips 9 points since June: poll

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement among Americans has seen a decline following the large-scale demonstrations that swept across the nation in response to the police killing of George Floyd, according to a new Politico-Morning Consult poll. 

The survey, released Wednesday, found that 52 percent of voters hold favorable opinions of Black Lives Matter, marking a 9-point dip from a similar poll released in June. Support among Republicans who hold favorable opinions of the movement has dropped by 13 points since June. 

Nationwide protests erupted when Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was killed in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25. Activists took to the streets demanding more policies to hold police officers accountable and to put laws in place to combat racial injustice. 

Many of the protests have been peaceful, however some have descended into violence, clashes with law enforcement and looting. President Trump has repeatedly portrayed the unrest as a product of local Democratic leadership and has claimed that it will only worsen under a Biden administration. 

But in the survey, respondents said they trust Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to handle public safety better than Trump.

Forty-seven percent of voters said they trusted Biden more than Trump to handle public safety, while 39 percent said they trusted Trump over Biden. Independent voters, suburban respondents and women said they were more likely to trust Biden over Trump to handle public safety. Thirteen percent of respondents said they did not know or didn’t have an opinion. 

The most recent poll arrived as a new wave of protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., led to violence and rioting.

Trump addressed the recent spree of demonstrations last week, saying at the Republican National Convention, “No one will be safe in Biden’s America.”

“My administration will always stand with the men and women of law enforcement,” he said.

Biden has pushed back against Trump’s allegations, saying in a speech in Pennsylvania earlier this week that Trump was the one inflaming tensions in American cities. 

The new poll showed Biden with a nearly 20-point advantage over Trump when it comes to race relations. Fifty-one percent of voters said they trusted the former vice president more than Trump on race relations, while 32 percent said the opposite. 

The Politico-Morning Consult survey was conducted from Aug. 28 to Aug. 30 among a sample of 1,988 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.