Vice President Harris leads former President Trump among LGBTQ voters by a wide margin, with more than 70 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer voters indicating they will cast a ballot for the Democratic ticket, according to a new poll.
Harris holds a nearly 67-point lead over Trump, according to the poll published Tuesday by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, and an almost 70-point lead when the results are restricted to those who plan to vote.
Data collection began two weeks after President Biden abandoned his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris and just days after Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, as her running mate. Survey responses were recorded about a week before independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign to endorse Trump.
Around 8 percent of respondents who intend to vote in this year’s presidential election said they would vote for Trump and his running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, compared with 77 percent who said they would vote for Harris and Walz. The remaining share of LGBTQ adults said they planned to back a third-party candidate in November or did not plan on voting.
The poll reflects the attitudes of roughly 2,500 LGBTQ voters nationwide.
A staggering 95 percent of LGBTQ adults surveyed said they are registered to vote in this year’s elections, far higher than the general population and consistent with findings from prior surveys that LGBTQ Americans tend to be more politically active.
In a 2022 survey of more than 92,000 transgender adults, more than 80 percent of voting-eligible respondents said they were registered to vote in the last presidential election in 2020. Seventy-five percent said they cast a ballot that year, compared with 67 percent nationwide, which was the highest voter turnout of the 21st century.
More than 93 percent of LGBTQ Americans in Tuesday’s survey said they are motivated to vote in November, including 73 percent who said they are “very” motivated to vote. Roughly 60 percent of Gen Z LGBTQ adults said they are motivated to cast a ballot, along with 72 percent of millennials and 91 percent of Gen X respondents.
Shoshana K. Goldberg, director of public education and research at the Human Rights Campaign, said the findings underscore the political power of LGBTQ voters, who were instrumental in sending Biden and Harris to the White House in 2020.
“Without a doubt, LGBTQ+ voters will continue to use the ballot box to fight for our right to live and thrive free from discrimination in this election and beyond,” Goldberg said Tuesday in a statement.
Advancing LGBTQ equality and combating anti-LGBTQ laws ranked highest on LGBTQ voters’ priorities, according to the poll, with close to 52 percent of respondents listing it as their top voting issue.
Abortion and reproductive rights ranked second, at 47 percent, and roughly a third of LGBTQ voters said judicial reform was among their top priorities. Thirty-one percent said inflation was a critical concern and 27 percent said Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the next conservative administration, was a key motivator driving them to the polls.
