While President Trump will be judged by his response to the violence engulfing cities across the country, the riots also pose political risks for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Biden needs to express unequivocal support for the protests against police treatment of African Americans without appearing to endorse the increasingly violent tenor of these demonstrations, a challenging feat for any politician much less one who is widely regarded as no longer at the top of his rhetorical game. He also cannot hug law enforcement too tightly, while some in the White House are encouraging Trump to make a pro-police statement even as he expresses sympathy for George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in custody.
Black voters are a crucial part of Biden’s electoral coalition. They helped rescue him from the political dead, starting in South Carolina, and delivered him the Democratic nomination. He also needs strong black turnout in the general election, something that eluded Hillary Clinton despite her strong showing with African Americans in the 2016 primaries, and to prevent Trump from making planned inroads with black men. These voters largely see Floyd’s death as part of a larger pattern of systemic racism and police brutality against their communities, and Biden has acknowledged he cannot take them for granted.
The former vice president can point to comments he has made criticizing “needless destruction” and encouraging peaceful protest, but it took him until Sunday morning to do so. Biden failed to condemn the rioting in his initial statement. “We need real leadership right now,” he said. “Leadership that will bring everyone to the table, so we can take measures to root out systemic racism.” Trump has singled out “professional anarchists, violent mobs, arsonists, looters, criminals, rioters, antifa, and others” who have turned the protests violent. Biden has already appeared at a demonstration, while Trump walked over to a historic district church that was burned during the unrest and posed outside with a Bible.
Law and order has traditionally been a Republican campaign issue, dating back to Richard Nixon’s defeat of Hubert Humphrey in 1968. Unlike Nixon, Trump is an incumbent, and the rioting is happening under his watch. But voters may also lack confidence in Biden and the Democrats to take a strong stand against the unrest, especially as many liberals characterized Trump’s vow to quell the violence as an imposition of “martial law,” and some activists on the Left have added “defund the police” to a repertoire that already includes “abolish ICE.”
“President Trump expressed horror at the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and swiftly launched a Department of Justice civil rights investigation,” said reelection campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “On Saturday, he spoke to the entire nation about his outrage over the death and also strongly condemned the violence across the country that endangers lives, businesses, and livelihoods.
“Joe Biden, by contrast, took days to say anything about the violence and then did so only in passing,” Murtaugh continued. “To make it worse, at least 13 of his campaign staffers bragged about donating to a fund that posts bail for people arrested for rioting in Minneapolis. The Biden team, then, is effectively funding the rioters who are burning Minneapolis to the ground. That’s egregious.”
The riots have spread from Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed, to over two dozen cities, including New York City and Washington, D.C. Democratic strategists point to Biden’s empathy and ability to project calm in contrast with Trump’s inflammatory tweets. Yet, however incendiary Trump’s rhetoric may be, it leaves little doubt where he stands on looting, smashing windows, and assaulting store owners. “The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities, and as their president, I will fight to keep them safe,” he declared Monday evening.
“There is political risk on both sides,” said Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak. “Biden waited four days to say anything, and he will be under pressure not to criticize the rioters. President Trump faces an urgent need to unify and calm the country while helping governors and mayors restore order. This is a very fluid situation. While most people sympathize with the outrageous injustice done to George Floyd, an overwhelming percentage of voters are horrified of the criminal looting and rioting through major American cities.”
Biden was mocked for telling black community leaders Monday that police officers should be trained to shoot unarmed assailants in the leg. “Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at ‘em with a knife or something, shoot ‘em in the leg instead of in the heart,” he said in Wilmington, Delaware. “There are a lot of things that can change.”
Biden was leading Trump in national polls taken before the riots broke out.
