Widespread conflict will get Trump elected, this is already proving the case as people see 'violence' instead of 'protesting' Trump is getting momentum. Don Lemon on CNN literally asking for people to calm down due to this fact.
Edit: Trump's support grew consistently as public support for BLM waned in face of the 'perception of violence' [1] - which Trump's team sees and is why he's pushing a 'law and order' message. The risk of BLM is that 'empathy' will easily be overwhelmed by 'concern' if pictures of violence play out on their TV screens every night. People will always chose public order over almost anything else.
Trump's 'Law and Justice' messaging may not be helping, but his approval ratings have improved as the protests have continued and none of the data in the article diminishes that.
It doesn't surprise me that many people support Biden as the mostly likely to 'quell tensions' etc. - however - that's not the same thing as the instinctive response to seeing widespread violence on TV.
Listen to Lemon [1]:
"“It’s showing up in the polling. It’s showing up in focus groups. It is the only thing right now that is sticking,” Lemon said ahead of "CNN Tonight" on Tuesday. “The riots and the protests have become indistinguishable."
This I believe.
More directly from Nate Silver here [2] where he is unsure there is a correlation, but since that article, the meme has continued and Trump has drifted up for no other apparent reason along the same trend line.
I don't like the man, the 'trend' is not good. Just a few weeks ago it looked like this would be over, now, there are many paths for him to come to win.
A showdown over Ginsberg replacement may be the decisive battle.
Edit: Trump's support grew consistently as public support for BLM waned in face of the 'perception of violence' [1] - which Trump's team sees and is why he's pushing a 'law and order' message. The risk of BLM is that 'empathy' will easily be overwhelmed by 'concern' if pictures of violence play out on their TV screens every night. People will always chose public order over almost anything else.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/trump-black-lives-m...