| Tot | Rep | Dem | Ind | Men | Wom | Evnglcl | |
| FL | |||||||
| More likely | 10% | 3% | 18% | 9% | 10% | 10% | 5% |
| Less likely | 28 | 46 | 21 | 18 | 33 | 23 | 47 |
| Doesn’t make a diff | 60 | 50 | 58 | 72 | 55 | 65 | 46 |
| DK/NA | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| OH | |||||||
| More likely | 10% | 2% | 13% | 12% | 8% | 11% | 4% |
| Less likely | 34 | 57 | 26 | 28 | 41 | 29 | 58 |
| Doesn’t make a diff | 54 | 39 | 60 | 57 | 50 | 58 | 35 |
| DK/NA | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| PA | |||||||
| More likely | 11% | 3% | 16% | 14% | 8% | 13% | 5% |
| Less likely | 28 | 45 | 18 | 19 | 32 | 23 | 52 |
| Doesn’t make a diff | 59 | 51 | 63 | 65 | 57 | 61 | 42 |
| DK/NA | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Across the board, independent numbers are far better for gay-friendly candidates than the statewide average. Most of them say they don’t care if a candidate is supported by gay-friendly organizations.
Of course, there’s always the “I don’t want to be recorded as a hater” issue, and these numbers may be more forgiving than reality. But I would argue that, by and large, the 25-40% of voters who are clearly turned off by pro-gay-values aren’t voting Dem anyway.
It’s unfortunate that Peter Brown, author of the Politico analysis and assistant director of the Quinnipiac polling institute, chose to focus his analysis as he did. Personally, I find it much more remarkable that the indifferent numbers are as high as they are. That’s the real news here and it should embolden Dems and scare Republicans. It looks like the social wedge issues that the Rs have used to great advantage in 2000, 2002, and 2004 are losing some of their divisiveness.
The rest of the poll results are interesting as well. In each of the three states, a 2/3 majority (give or take) support either full marriage rights or civil unions. I’m guessing the 1/3 who don’t are also the 1/3 who answered “less likely” to the above influence question.
Labor affiliation is good. Gun groups aren’t as bad as I’d like them to be. Abortion and Conservative Christians are pretty evenly split, still with a majority not caring.
Looks like people are interested in more pressing concerns. I’d guess they’re receptive to things like healthcare, education, retirement, housing, costs of living, and security. When these are the issues that get discussed, the Dems are going to do pretty darn well.
I suspect that most of the votes it loses are ones we’d never get in the first place. Targeting an appeal at conservatives is no way for Democrats to win elections.
The question I don’t think tells us that much, mainly because “being supported by gay rights group” is not nearly as controversial or publicized as a platform favoring civil unions and/or marriage equality.
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Regardless, I’d hope that most any Democratic candidate is going to be “supported by gay rights groups”, because the Republican alternative will likely be horrific. I’d much rather have seen different phrasing: “a candidate whose platform includes expanded rights for gay Americans” or “a candidate whose platform on gay rights closely matches those of gay rights groups”.
“A candidate whose platform includes the same rights for straight and gay Americans”? “Expanding rights for gays” is certainly what we want to do, but when stated that way leaves room for the “special rights” interpretation by people with little experience with these issues.
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But I take your point on the question as a whole. However, I can see why they might have stated all the questions that way. It prevents getting mired in talking about specifics which would be of varying depth and thus not comparable across the subject areas (choice, business, religion, etc).
It isn’t showing up on my screen for this diary.
Thanks David!
…it depends on how the questions are posed. (And this is why I am so reticent about believing anything that comes out of so-called “social science.”)
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Is there a difference between questions posed “gay rights” and “equal rights for gay people”? I doubt that many polls even refer to the later.
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NB: Lakoff is the UC Berkeley liguist who noted differences in responses regarding how issues are framed.
Personally I do not think the gay marriage amendments in OH, OR, etc. lost the Kerry ticket that many votes. Most voters whose primary motivation is social issues would have voted for Bush anyway. In other words being a pro-choice party and having pro-choice nominees will lose us the same votes as bein pro-gay rights. The bulk of that crucial 5% of swing voters are independents, Perot voters, and these people typically tend to be quite libertarian on social issues and broke towards Bush because they trusted his consistency on the war and mistrusted Kerry’s inconsistency.
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So I would agree that these numbers only confirm that. On average around 70% of independents, or about 3.5% of swing voters in these states don’t care, add that to the 9% that are more likely and you have a clear majority of the independent vote in these swing states. Assuming then that the states break down by party lines that means a Democratic victory in these crucial swing states.
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So what it does mean is that the Democratic candidates should articulate a clear plan for exiting Iraq and not wavering from it, articulate a clear economic agenda, have a policy on illegal immigration that satisifies everyone roughly like Obama’s (better border security, amnesty but they have to wait at the back of the line, punish employers), and support very broadly abortion and gay rights.
The next question is whether voters even know that a candidate is supported by gay rights groups. In most states, that’s where Republican advertising comes in…