Explaining 2020 Trump support: The role of anti-Muslim, pro-police, and anti-BLM attitudes

Abstract

For at least 75 years, social scientists have pointed to racial attitudes as a dominant force in American politics. But the relative positioning of outgroups can be dynamic, suggesting that attitudes toward one group might be predictive of vote choice in one electoral context, but not another. Here, we estimate which group attitudes in the U.S. were correlated with presidential vote choice from 2012–2020. Panel data at four time points during this period indicates that attitudes towards Muslims were the strongest predictor of Republican presidential support until 2019, but faded in substantive importance in 2020 when anti-BLM attitudes became highly prognostic. High-frequency weekly data from 2019-2020 pinpoints when this shift occurred: anti-Muslim prejudice shaped Trump approval from 2019 through May 2020. After the George Floyd murder, pro-police and anti-BLM attitudes immediately become the most important predictors of Trump approval, whilst the effect of anti-Muslim attitudes diminished.