Voters Support Protests, Have Lost Trust In Police

By Ethan Winter, Charlotte Swasey and Jason Ganz 

  • A majority of voters believe that recent protests spring from a desire to hold police accountable and that most protesters are peaceful.

  • 68 percent of voters support creating a new non-police first responder agency to respond to issues of mental illness or addiction.

  • A majority agree that police killings of black Americans are part of a larger problem and that police use violence when they don’t need to.

The protests following George Floyd’s murder have lead to wide ranging discussion on the role of police in American society. The way in which a militarized police state brutalizes and discriminates against black Americans has, once again, been exposed. 

In a June survey, Data for Progress polled voters about their beliefs about police, police violence, the recent protests, and proposed reforms. Overall, we found high levels of support for reforms, as well as a declining trust in the police and broad acceptance that police killings are a systemic problem. 

The police are currently asked to perform tasks that do not inherently require force but can quickly escalate when police are present, including responding to addiction and mental health emergencies. Reformers have proposed creating new agencies to fill these gaps, removing police from situations where de-escalation and adequate support services could prevent violence against the very people they are supposed to help.

We asked voters whether or not they would support or oppose, “Creating a new agency of first-responders, like emergency medical services or firefighters, to deal with issues related to addiction or mental illness that need to be remedied but do not need police.” Voters were provided a five-point scale ranging from “Strongly support” to “Strongly oppose” with an option for if they didn’t know. 

We found overwhelming support for this proposal with voters supporting it by a 48-percentage-point margin (68 percent support, 20 percent oppose). Support for this proposal was consistent across measured racial demographics with black and white voters backing by margins of 28-points and 54-points, respectively. Support for creating a non-police first responder agency was also bipartisan with self-identifying Democrats backing it by a 61-point margin and self-identifying Republicans doing so by a 25-point margin.     

 
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Another possible solution is training trusted community members to respond to tense situations, rather than bringing in police. We asked voters whether or not they’d support funding community-based programs to provide training in de-escalating potentially violent situations and found high levels of support. 

 
 

At the same time we see cratering trust in the American police as an institution. Here, we asked voters whether or not the events of the past three days have either increased, decreased, or left their trust in the police about the same. While a plurality of voters (48 percent) reported that the events of the past few days didn’t change their level of trust in the police, those who reported that they now trusted the police less (37 percent) was more than double those who said they now trusted the police more (16 percent). By a margin of 50-points and 14-points, black and white voters, respectively, all reported that they now trust the police less. When responses are broken out according to partisanship, we see by a 40-point margin Democrats trust the police less while Republicans trust the police less by a two-point margin. 

 
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Next, we asked voters a series of binary choice, some of which included a “don’t know” or “not sure” response option. The utility of this kind of question is it allows us to gauge how voters are interpreting ongoing events and their generalized approach to issues, separate from specific policy proposals. 

One common argument used to dismiss protests and outcry in the wake of police killings of Black Americans is that each death is an isolated incident, a tragic accident but not representative of any larger problem that would require reforms. We find that voters disagree with this argument and a majority identify police killings as part of a larger, systemic problem. 

We found that a majority of voters (51 percent) think that these killings are part of a broader problem. Thirty-seven percent of voters, meanwhile, think these killings are isolated incidents while the remaining 12 percent of voters weren’t sure. Responses were largely consistent regardless of race: fifty-one percent of Black voters and 50 percent of white voters both thought that these killings are indicative of a broader problem. Attitudes on this question were largely correlated with partisanship. Sixty-eight percent Democrats think these killings point to a broader problem while 54 percent of Republicans think that these killings are only isolated incidents.

 
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Next, we asked voters whether or not they thought the protests sprang from a genuine desire to hold police officers accountable for their actions or were the result of longstanding anti-police bias. A majority (54 percent) of voters reported that they believed protests arose from a desire to hold the police accountable for their actions while only 32 percent said that the protests were the result of longstanding anti-police bias. The opinion that the protests arose from a desire to hold the police accountable for their actions is one shared by a majority of Black (66 percent) and White voters (52 percent). Seventy percent of Democrats thought that the protests are the result of wanting to hold the police accountable while Republicans were more split on the matter: forty percent said the protests are about holding officers accountable while 47 percent said the protests are the result of bias. 

 
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We asked voters about if they would characterize the protests as either mostly peaceful and aimed at meaningful social reforms or mostly an attempt to incite violence and destroy poverty. We found that a majority of voters (56 percent) reported that they think the protests are mostly peaceful and aimed at meaningful social reforms. This was also the majority position of Black (53 percent) and white voters (58 percent). Democrats and Republicans were split on this question: Sixty-nine percent of the former said the protests were mainly peaceful while a plurality of Republicans (48 percent) said that the goal of the protests are mainly inciting violence. 

 
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We also asked about police officers' use of force, and found that a majority believe the police use an excess of violence that goes beyond what is required. Voters were provided two response options: “police officers often use violence when they don’t need to” or that “police officers deploy force because they’re dealing with violent criminals”. Overall, a majority (53 percent) of voters reported that the police use violence when they don’t need to. This was the majority position of Black (67 percent) and white voters (51 percent). Democrats and Republicans were divided on this question. Seventy percent of Democrats said that police use violence when they don’t need to while 67 percent of Republicans reported that police use force because they’re dealing with violent criminals. 

 
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What this results make plain is that public opinion is currently with the protesters and against the police. Voters support the creation of a new first-responder entity, one wholly separate from the police, and investment in de-escalation training. Trust in the police has sharply eroded in the past few days as members of law enforcement agencies across the country have responded with brutal, repressive violence in the face of mostly peaceful protests. 

We are at a historic crossroads for racial justice in America. Activists, protestors, and community groups are putting their lives on the line in order to create space for radical new approaches to policing and criminal justice. Thus far, voters have found the protests both persuasive and impactful in fostering views that make a break from the status quo seem like a real possibility. 


Ethan Winter (@EthanBWinter) is an analyst at Data for Progress. You can email him at ethan@dataforprogress.org.

Charlotte Swasey (@charlotteeffect) is the VP of Polling and Data at Data for Progress.

Jason Ganz (@jasnonaz) is the CTO of Data for Progress

From June 4 to June 6, 2020, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,352 likely voters nationally using web-panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ± 2.7 percentage points. 

Question Wording 

Would you support or oppose the following reforms: -- Creating a new agency of first-responders, like emergency medical services or firefighters, to deal with issues related to addiction or mental illness that need to be remedied but do not need police

  • Strongly support

  • Somewhat support

  • Somewhat oppose

  • Strongly oppose

  • Don’t know 

Would you support or oppose the following reforms: -- Funding community-based programs to train community leaders to de-escalate potentially violent situations

  • Strongly support

  • Somewhat support

  • Somewhat oppose

  • Strongly oppose

  • Don’t know 

How have the events of the last few days changed your beliefs about police?

  • Made me less likely to trust police

  • Didn't change my level of trust in police

  • Made me more likely to trust police

When thinking about incidents in which black Americans are killed by police officers, which comes closer to the your opinion:

  • These are signs of a broader problem.

  • There are isolated incidents.

  • Not sure. 

When thinking about protests after black Americans are killed by police officers, which comes closer to your opinion on what causes the protests:

  • A genuine desire to hold officers accountable for their actions

  • Long standing bias against the police

  • Not sure

Which of the following comes closer to your view, even if neither is exactly right?

  • Most of the current protesters are peaceful and want to bring about meaningful social reform, even though some are trying to incite violence or destroy property.

  • Most of the current protestors are trying to incite violence or destroy property, even though some are peaceful and want to bring about meaningful social reform.

  • Don’t know

Which of the following comes closest to your view?

  • Police mostly use violence because they're dealing with violent criminals

  • Police often use violence when they don't need to

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