According to a poll released on Thursday a majority of likely voters – 59% – want attacks on police officers to be classified as hate crimes. That number is unchanged from 2016, but the number of respondents who say they believe there is a war on police has increased significantly from 43% to 59% since 2016.
The poll finds that while African-Americans were less likely than White-Americans to support so-called “Blue Lives Matter” laws (52% to 63%), more African-Americans believed that such attacks would lead to a shortage of police officers (84% to 66%).
Republicans were found to be more likely than Democrats to support such laws (80% vs. 39%) and support “Blue Lives Matter” in their state (79% vs. 45%).
The Rasmussen poll was conducted with 1,000 likely voters between Sept. 15 and 16.
You can read more here and details on the poll data here.
Photo by Jamelle Bouie