What played a bigger role in Trump’s defeat?

[darklordoftech]

?

[Redban]

Option 3: The racial riots. This issue allowed Democrats to relentlessly push their bread-and-butter attack -- that Republicans are the party of racists and white supremist. After the events involving Floyd, Arbery, Rittenhouse, the allegations that Republicans = racists obtained more power than usual. Hence, I believe the racial protests, not Covid, was the backbreaker for Trump 2020.

But between those 2 options in the poll, Covid had a bigger role

[EJ24]

Voted COVID.

But I think the election was an overall referendum on Trump. Many people just grew tired of the nonstop drama and were embarrassed by him, and sought a return to "normalcy".

[Frodo]

His mishandling of the COVID pandemic is the be all-and-end all.  Had it not been for COVID, I have no doubt that even if people were tired of his antics, it would not have been enough to prevent him from winning a second term.  As to the racial protests (and some riots) in the wake of the George Floyd murder, it wasn't long before the 'law-and-order' sentiment (fanned and abetted by Fox News and the right-wing news media) started to overtake the initial rush of sympathy and support for the Black Lives Matter movement.  And we shouldn't forget the economy up until March 2020 was doing very well, and would have continued through the rest of the year up until election day.  

[MARGINS6729]

COVID19.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

Anyone who worried about Trump becoming a dictator was never voting for Trump to begin with, and didn't vote for him in 2016. COVID flipped some Trump 2016 voters. It mobilized a lot of 2016 nonvoters to vote in 2020. Trump's authoritarian rhetoric during the BLM protests mobilized many 2016 nonvoters. People were annoyed with Trump's antics already, and Biden did a great job of painting COVID as a continuation of the Trump melodrama.

[Cyrusman]

Anyone who worried about Trump becoming a dictator was never voting for Trump to begin with, and didn't vote for him in 2016. COVID flipped some Trump 2016 voters. It mobilized a lot of 2016 nonvoters to vote in 2020. Trump's authoritarian rhetoric during the BLM protests mobilized many 2016 nonvoters. People were annoyed with Trump's antics already, and Biden did a great job of painting COVID as a continuation of the Trump melodrama.

Why do you think his authoritarian rhetoric mobilized non 2016 voters when people were looting and breaking buildings during that time? It wasn’t just protests

[Cyrusman]

Option 3: The racial riots. This issue allowed Democrats to relentlessly push their bread-and-butter attack -- that Republicans are the party of racists and white supremist. After the events involving Floyd, Arbery, Rittenhouse, the allegations that Republicans = racists obtained more power than usual. Hence, I believe the racial protests, not Covid, was the backbreaker for Trump 2020.

But between those 2 options in the poll, Covid had a bigger role

No way. If anything long term this helped Trump due to the law and order issue. It started as protests and then turned into riots, and looting. He was able to push the democrats are easy on crime agenda. Personally I’d say this was wash
Anyone who thought republicans were racists wouldn’t have voted for Trump anyway

[Redban]

Option 3: The racial riots. This issue allowed Democrats to relentlessly push their bread-and-butter attack -- that Republicans are the party of racists and white supremist. After the events involving Floyd, Arbery, Rittenhouse, the allegations that Republicans = racists obtained more power than usual. Hence, I believe the racial protests, not Covid, was the backbreaker for Trump 2020.

But between those 2 options in the poll, Covid had a bigger role

No way. If anything long term this helped Trump due to the law and order issue. It started as protests and then turned into riots, and looting. He was able to push the democrats are easy on crime agenda. Personally I’d say this was wash
Anyone who thought republicans were racists wouldn’t have voted for Trump anyway

Even with all the riots and looting, polls indicated 80% support for Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2020. The issue was a boon for Democrats

[IAMCANADIAN]

People seem to forget that Trump was on track to lose by a large margin before COVID even hit. I have the controversial take that the COVID response(and the BLM protests for that matter) were net neutral because it forced a lot of Trump skeptic republicans/liberatrian types to vote for him, which is why he had such a high vote total.


Remember that the 2019 statewide elections were a disaster for the Republicans and so were the 2018 midterms the presidential election was looking like a blowout, ended up being a lot closer than anyone though.

[pbrower2a]

Trump would have won had Trump supporters gotten inoculated at the same rate as Trump-despisers.  All in all, such is a failure of Trump leadership, and tht may have been the margin in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. 

[Arizona Iced Tea]

It was the BLM stuff. I clearly remember that by Mid May he was still within fighting distance of Biden and the election was considered lean Biden, but still completely winnable for Trump despite the Covid pandemic raging and the economy in shambles. He was down in the rcp average by <5% and had a lead in the betting odds. However, after the race riots and the end of June he was down double digits in the polling aggregate, and most people had Biden as a clear favorite (likely D). He managed to recover a good chunk of it by August, but the momentum stalled out after that and it clearly wasn't enough to win.

[Pericles]

It was the BLM stuff. I clearly remember that by Mid May he was still within fighting distance of Biden and the election was considered lean Biden, but still completely winnable for Trump despite the Covid pandemic raging and the economy in shambles. He was down in the rcp average by <5% and had a lead in the betting odds. However, after the race riots and the end of June he was down double digits in the polling aggregate, and most people had Biden as a clear favorite (likely D). He managed to recover a good chunk of it by August, but the momentum stalled out after that and it clearly wasn't enough to win.

There was a second wave of Covid in June 2020 that could easily be blamed on Trump though because he was minimising the pandemic's impact and encouraging states to abandon restrictions quickly, so it was easy for him to come across as an out of touch fool. For much of the campaign period the US also had a lot more Covid going around than Europe (they didn't have a summer wave), but Trump didn't even look like he was trying to deal with it.

[Sir Mohamed]

Covid out of these, though the drama was also a major factor. People were just tired of his BS and the daily circus.

[The Economy is Getting Worse]

COVID, only because of the poor economy that it caused. However, it's possible that we were headed for a recession anyway without COVID (the yield curve inverted in late 2019), in which case COVID saved Trump from losing by even more (since he could credibly blame the poor economy on COVID, and give out stimulus using COVID as a reason to hide the true state of the economy).

COVID probably actually helped Trump in Florida as well.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Trump would have won had Trump supporters gotten inoculated at the same rate as Trump-despisers.  All in all, such is a failure of Trump leadership, and tht may have been the margin in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. 

Nobody in the entire country (aside from trial participants) was vaccinated in November 2020.

[Alben Barkley]

Is "Trump won because of BLM" really what Republicans are telling themselves? LMAO. The race riots helped Trump and made the election as close as it was. There's a reason he won Kenosha, Wisconsin.