Can protests lead to political change by influencing voting behaviour in subsequent elections? My thesis examines whether the ‘Black Lives Matter’ (BLM) protests helped the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 US election. Using an instrumental variables strategy with rainfall, I find that non-violent BLM protests increased the Democratic vote share in swing states in part by discouraging Republican voter turnout. Simple model predications also suggest that the BLM protests had an impact in three states that flipped Democrat in the 2020 election.
