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Bernice Bigham, a 75-year-old Louisville resident, wore a T-shirt into the voting booth that summed up her feelings. It read, in all caps, Black Voters Matter. On the back it said, Its About Us.

Im fearful, said Ms. Bigham, who voted for Mr. Biden. Every time theres a killing, Im calling around to make sure that my Black son and my Black grandsons are OK, and thats no way to live its awful.

And in Flower Mound, Texas, Brooke Wright, 39, often voted Republican because she opposed abortion, but this fall she voted for Mr. Biden. On down ballot races, she and her husband selected women and minority candidates.

Ms. Wright, who is white and goes to an evangelical church, had gone to her first Black Lives Matter protest this summer. Tears streamed down her face as she held a sign to support her husband, who is Black, and their two biracial young sons.

The protests made me want change so much, she said. I was ready to have the hard conversations with people who didnt understand why I didnt vote Republican anymore, instead of quietly staying out of those conversations.

There is also evidence that the protests helped Mr. Trump.

Downtowns tore all to hell, said Teresa Stidham, 43, a white Louisville resident, noting that the windows of many buildings in downtown have been covered by plywood for months. She said that she voted for Mr. Trump primarily because he would fight for the working class, but that the citys civil unrest was an important factor, too.

In Minneapolis, Adrian Anderson, a retail worker, said he was turned off by the vandalism and looting of businesses in the aftermath of protests over the killing of Mr. Floyd.

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Voters Say Black Lives Matter Protests Were Important. They Disagree On Why. - The New York Times