I think the riots and a lack of response to them from Democratic Mayors and Governors as well as Defund the Police hurt the Democrats too, and I think it does explain the few instances of Biden winning certain counties for President while the GOP won downticket.
The fact that people keep pushing this narrative despite everyone having lived through 2020 is really disconcerting.
Overall the public sentiment for most of 2020 was generally very sympathetic to BLM since police in most places brutally attacked protestors, and Trump was seen as generally egging on racist thugs and mass violence. There were large BLM protests in Eastern Kentucky; Utah changed the name of a state university. There was a large but sadly temporary shift in public opinion on race relations and police violence. Results like this just don't make sense unless you remember that.
The protests and uprisings around the murder of George Floyd and police violence in general definitely hurt Democrats in some places--Kenosha is the obvious one. But that doesn't erase the reality of public opinion at the time.
Ultimately it feels like this is all being memory holed, because we're now in a period of intense backlash to BLM, but we should not allow this stuff to cloud our analysis as psephologists.
