Poll: Support for Black Lives Matter drops 12 points since June

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement dropped by 12 percentage points since June, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.

Fifty-five percent of U.S. adults said that they supported the racial justice movement in the September survey, compared with 67 percent in June who said the same. 

Among Black Americans, support for the movement has remained the same at roughly 87 percent.

White Americans’ support for Black Lives Matter went down from 60 percent in June to 45 percent in September and among Hispanic Americans support decreased from 77 percent to 66 percent. Support for the movement among Asian Americans went down from 75 percent to 69 percent since June.

The drop was most evident among partisans: For Republicans, support for Black Lives Matter dropped from 37 percent to 16 percent. Among Democrats it has decreased minimally, from 92 percent support to 88 percent. 

The Black Lives Matter movement rocketed to the forefront of national debate in late May after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Bystander video taken at Floyd’s arrest shows now-former police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for several minutes until he became unresponsive. 

Since then, the death of Floyd and of other Black Americans have sparked nationwide protests that continue. 

The decrease in support for the Black Lives Matter movement comes as protests across the country intensified following the police shooting of another Black American, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wis. Blake was shot in the back by a police officer several times while he was trying to enter his vehicle. He is currently paralyzed from the waist down. 

Police brutality and the nature of the protests have been a main issue on the presidential campaign trail, with President Trump saying his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, is ill-equipped to address the unrest.

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the white couple in St. Louis who pointed weapons at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home and who now face weapons charges, spoke on the first night of the GOP convention last month.