And for the first time ever, a majority of Republicans (55 percent) also say they support same-sex marriage. According to Gallup, which has been tracking Americans’ support for marriage equality since 1996, a record-high 70 percent of all adults now believe that same-sex marriage should be recognized by the law and that same-sex couples should have the same rights as opposite-sex couples who are married. More generally speaking, Republican voters also seem to have changed their attitude toward issues like same-sex marriage. ambassador to Germany at the time, campaigning on Trump’s behalf. During his presidential campaign in 2016, for example, Donald Trump made overt appeals to LGBTQ voters, and ahead of the 2020 election, he announced an LGBTQ coalition, with Richard Grenell, the openly gay U.S. On top of that, most believe that the party has changed a lot in its treatment of same-sex couples. They’re also more likely to factor normal GOP dogma - favoring lower taxes, less federal government intervention and some restrictions on abortion - into their identity. This is true for many reasons, but one of the biggest threads I stumbled upon in my interviews and research is that many LGB Republicans see their sexuality and politics as separate. That said, there’s still a small but growing number of LGB voters who are loyal to the GOP. Moreover, LGB voters were much more likely than the electorate overall to hold broadly liberal political beliefs. Lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans still represent a small share of the adult population (about 5 percent), but a 2016 Pew Research Center study found that 82 percent of LGB voters identified as or leaned Democratic while only 18 percent identified as or leaned toward the GOP. Leonardon stressed that “someone does not have to be very ‘pro-gay’ to get my vote.” He just doesn’t want politicians to espouse openly anti-gay views, adding that his policy when assessing political candidates is generally “I won’t discuss it if you won’t discuss it.”īut the fact that Leonardon voted for a Republican even once - and has continued to support Republican or independent candidates - is notable because most lesbian, gay and bisexual voters tend to identify as Democrats. That’s because, as a gay man, Leonardon found certain comments Ravotti made about gays and lesbians unsettling. Instead, Leonardon wrote his own name on the ballot. The Republican candidate, Bill Ravotti, didn’t really stand a chance of defeating Coyne, but Leonardon still couldn’t bring himself to vote for Ravotti. It was 1996, when he was living in Pennsylvania’s 14th District, long represented by William Coyne, a Democrat. But during at least one race in his lifetime, Leonardon broke his habit. In a normal election year, Richard Leonardon, 60, would be supporting a Republican or independent political candidate. Think you might fit the bill? Fill out this form and we might get in touch. Blocs of voters are rarely uniform in their beliefs, which is why this column will dive into undercovered parts of the electorate, showing how diverse and atypical most voters are.
In today’s climate, it’s easy to focus on how a group identifies politically, but that’s never the full story. Welcome to Political Outliers, a column that explores groups of Americans who are often portrayed as all voting the same way.