A new poll out of Wisconsin shows support for Black Lives Matter protests dropped 13 percentage points between June and early August.
Forty-eight percent of Wisconsin residents support Black Lives Matter protests and 48% disapprove, according to a Marquette Law School poll conducted between Aug. 8 and Aug. 9.
The results for approval dropped when compared to numbers from June. Marquette found 61% of residents approved of the movement’s protests from June 14 to June 18, with 36% disapproving.
“Approval remained strong among Black or Hispanic respondents and in the City of Milwaukee, but declined among white respondents and in the four media-market regions of the state outside the city of Milwaukee. Approval also declined in each of five urban-suburban categories including cities, suburbs, exurbs, small towns and rural areas,” the poll reported.
The poll comes as protests and riots have spread across the country since the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day. His death sparked a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the nation’s discourse, with businesses, sports teams, and some in politics voicing their support for BLM.
“A lot of people kind of use this analogy, talking about Black Lives Matter as a movement. It’s not a movement,” Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James said in July. “When you’re Black, it’s not a movement. It’s a lifestyle. We sit here and say it’s a movement, and, OK, how long is this movement going to last? ‘Don’t stop the movement.’ No, this is a walk of life. When you wake up and you’re Black, that is what it is. It shouldn’t be a movement. It should be a lifestyle. This is who we are.”
President Trump and his allies have pointed to BLM’s Marxist ties in criticisms of its activism.
“All of sudden, this is taking on this air of great respectability. Well, how does it start there? It’s a Marxist group. It’s a Marxist group that is not looking for good things for our country, and now, I see these leagues all kneeling down,” Trump said earlier this month of BLM.
Marquette’s poll was conducted before the police shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday, which has sparked protests, riots, arson and shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
