A new poll suggests there is both a partisan and racial divide among Georgia voters in support for the ongoing protests over police brutality following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) piece published the results of the poll Wednesday and found that 57% of all polled said they support the demonstrations protesting police brutality that have occurred since Floyd’s death. However, only 42% of white voters answered with approval and only 24% of Republicans did so, according to the AJC.
Protests over police brutality and systemic racism have exposed a cultural fault line evident in AJC’s poll: Georgia voters who are people of color and younger are much more likely to support demonstrations than those who are white, older and conservative. https://t.co/BZIHtXTJCu
— AJC (@ajc) September 23, 2020
Political party affiliation has been demonstrated to play a part in a voter’s views on whether racism is a major problem in America, according to a CNN poll. According to CNN, 22% of Republican respondents said racism is a big problem today, compared to 84% of Democrats who said the same.
There was a notable racial divide in focus of concern amid the protests and riots. Black voters tended to be more concerned about police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s demise, with 65% of respondents focusing on violence of police officers, according to the AJC. (RELATED: Overwhelming Majority Of Black Americans Support Current Or Increased Police Presence, Survey Shows)
“People are upset things like this happen, but you have to get people’s attention,” Marietta resident A.J. LaGroon, a black voter, told the AJC. “It would not happen if people were not getting killed.”
On the other hand, 60% of white voters said they were more concerned with the violence of the protests.
“If you are protesting, I think you should be doing it peacefully,” Columbia county resident Angela Aduri told the AJC. “I do not think you should be burning down cities. I do not think that is what George Floyd would want.”
This divide among Georgia voters is likely to be reflected in the national polls, as nearly 90% of black voters telling AJC they trusted former Vice President Joe Biden to tackle the problem of racial inequality. President Donald Trump has the majority support of the white voters AJC polled, with 58% saying they trusted him on the same issue.