Over the next four years, we are going to hear a lot about how "the riots helped Trump" and Democrats moved too far to the left more than any other potential cause of increases in Trump support. This is because these are the things that felt cable TV news hosts feel most like voting for Trump, not because they actually understand any of the trends. They may well have been factors, but the effects of the lockdowns/the rest of 2020 are probably going to get overlooked, IMO.
Plus there's the fact that the states where the rioting was worst and that was supposed to doom us -- Minnesota and Wisconsin -- pulled through, especially Minnesota where the George Floyd incident happened in the first place. And those are pretty white states. Maybe you could argue we would have won them by more without the riots, but it's gonna be real hard to prove. There was also Georgia, site of the Rayshard Brooks incident and riots (remember the burned down Wendy's?). I don't recall there being as major riots in Florida, Ohio, Texas, yet that's where we underperformed the polls the worst.
