Do appeals to Black voters necessarily detract white voters from supporting the left? Extant studies have yielded mixed answers to this question by examining voter turnout data. We use two survey experiments to test how framing politicians as either supportive of or hostile to the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) and #SayHerName (SHN) movements affected the willingness of voters to support them during the 2020 Senate runoff elections in Georgia. We find that Democratic-leaning respondents in both a national sample of Black respondents and a sample of White respondents in Georgia were more likely to support politicians whom we framed as supportive of the BLM and SHN movements. These findings illustrate the potential potency of messaging strategies grounded in racial justice themes for mobilizing Democratic-leaning voters in American elections.
