Did COVID and/or policing have any effect, or had voters already made up their minds?

[darklordoftech]

?

[Beet]

Of course it did. Policing had the effect of energizing the left-liberal base and resulted in higher turnaround among Blacks and liberals that pushed Biden over the top. Without the George Floyd video, Trump probably would've pulled a Truman. Thanks, racist cops.

Covid caused a relatively small sliver of educated white professionals who tolerated all of Trump's other foibles to finally switch to Biden, but it caused a much larger group of minority and working class people thrown out of work by lockdowns to turn against the Democrats and back Trump. This nearly got Trump re-elected.

[GregTheGreat657]

Most people had already decided, but enough voters changed their minds to tip the election

[xavier110]

COVID and BLM definitely affected the election.

As we saw with several polls, non-Black minority groups were very mixed on BLM and police reform topics, while educated whites were actually among the most receptive groups. This definitely played into the election results.

On top of that, COVID further splintered things by education levels. The less educated are still less likely to be vaccinated and were more opposed to lockdowns — which makes sense when they’re more likely to need society open to keep their livelihoods and jobs. COVID lockdowns also played into the government overreach “socialism” misinformation we saw circulating among Spanish speaking communities over social media prior to the election.

We need much more investigation into the last topic and who funded those campaigns. There was some decent contemporaneous reporting of crazy WhatsApp messages focused on BLM and COVID hitting Florida’s Cuban voters, and they definitely seemed effective at setting the tone of election conversations and securing Trump’s win there.

[Pericles]

Before Covid, Trump's presidency wasn't a disaster for normal people, it was easy to see him being re-elected because things were going well for the country (even though he did nothing to deserve it). The voters clearly saw that Trump was flailing and couldn't control a crisis that was hugely affecting their lives, and that's why he wasn't re-elected.

Black Lives Matter could go either way, it did boost Democratic base turnout, but it also likely helped energise the Republican base and flip a few swing voters back to Trump since they feared defunding the police. So I doubt it had much impact but if I had to guess Biden would have won by slightly more without it.

[Progressive Pessimist]

They definitely had at least some effect. Trump probably would have been re-elected if the pandemic and the economic decline that went with it didn't happen at all. As for how much that moved peoples' votes, it's hard to say how much it did in concrete numbers. And meanwhile the aftermath of George Floyd's death probably made up for some of the support that was leaving Trump and the GOP due to their handling of the public health crisis.

[LBJer]

I voted with (so far) everyone else on this one that they had an effect.  The vast majority of voters had already made up their minds, but Biden's margins in key states were small enough that there's a good chance Donald Trump would have won the electoral college (though not the popular vote) again if the pandemic had not happened.  

[Del Tachi]

COVID was obviously the most important issue of the election. 

[Schiff for Senate]

Obviously. Without COVID19 the election may have had a different trajectory. To a somewhat lesser extent, the same goes to the BLM protests.

[Skill and Chance]

Of course it did. Policing had the effect of energizing the left-liberal base and resulted in higher turnaround among Blacks and liberals that pushed Biden over the top. Without the George Floyd video, Trump probably would've pulled a Truman. Thanks, racist cops.

Covid caused a relatively small sliver of educated white professionals who tolerated all of Trump's other foibles to finally switch to Biden, but it caused a much larger group of minority and working class people thrown out of work by lockdowns to turn against the Democrats and back Trump. This nearly got Trump re-elected.

I'm intrigued by the COVID helped Trump on net argument.  Could you elaborate on this?   I tend to think in non-COVID world, Trump takes a much smaller hit with suburban white men, which should be enough to keep him in the WH even if he doesn't get as much Hispanic improvement over 2016.  This argument would make a lot more sense to me if Clinton had won Florida in 2016.   

[OSR stands with Israel]

Without COVID , I don’t think the type of riots and unrest we saw would be anywhere near as bad as well . It would probably be a repeat of 2014-15 rather than what we got in OTL

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

Of course it did. Policing had the effect of energizing the left-liberal base and resulted in higher turnaround among Blacks and liberals that pushed Biden over the top. Without the George Floyd video, Trump probably would've pulled a Truman. Thanks, racist cops.

Covid caused a relatively small sliver of educated white professionals who tolerated all of Trump's other foibles to finally switch to Biden, but it caused a much larger group of minority and working class people thrown out of work by lockdowns to turn against the Democrats and back Trump. This nearly got Trump re-elected.

I'm intrigued by the COVID helped Trump on net argument.  Could you elaborate on this?   I tend to think in non-COVID world, Trump takes a much smaller hit with suburban white men, which should be enough to keep him in the WH even if he doesn't get as much Hispanic improvement over 2016.  This argument would make a lot more sense to me if Clinton had won Florida in 2016.   

The stimulus checks are a fitting (partial) explanation for the Latino, Asian, and Other Race R swings (or lack of a D swing) we saw in big metros across the country. Biden nearly lost PA and WI because of the R swings that happened in Philly and Milwaukie proper.

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This is simillar to a swing map, except rather than using the swing as a change in the % margin, it shows the change in raw net votes.

[Non Swing Voter]

These are two drastically different things.  Covid had an impact.  Policing no.  Anyone who has a partisan view on policing is already settled on a party.  The two parties are night and day on this issue.