United States Senator Hillary Clinton is backed by 63 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGBs) likely voters in the Democratic primaries, according to a survey by the New York City-based Hunter College Poll. Clinton was followed by U.S. Senator Barack Obama with 22 percent and John Edwards with 7 percent.
United States Senator Hillary Clinton is backed by 63 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGBs) likely voters in the Democratic primaries, according to a survey by the New York City-based Hunter College Poll. Clinton was followed by U.S. Senator Barack Obama with 22 percent and John Edwards with 7 percent.
The poll, conducted with 768 respondents by Knowledge Networks, Inc. from Nov. 15 through November 26, has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percent. The study’s investigators include: Patrick J. Egan, an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at New York University; Murray Edelman, a distinguished scholar at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute; and Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College. The Hunter College Poll was funded by a grant from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.
The Hunter College Poll also reported that during the process of “coming out,” LGBs become more liberal and more engaged in the political process than does the general population.
“These levels of civic engagement indicate that gay people can have a bigger influence on public policy than suggested by their relatively small share of the population,” said Egan, whose co-edited book Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy will be published by Oxford University Press in 2008.
Complete survey results and methodology may be found at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/news/#hunterpoll
Other findings include:
- Nine in 10 LGB likely voters will vote in the Democratic primaries and 21 percent say that lesbian and gay rights will be the most important issue influencing their vote in 2008.
- Seventy-two percent of LGB likely voters consider Senator Clinton a supporter of gay rights, with Senator Obama at 52 percent and former Senator Edwards at 41 percent. Of the Republican candidates, the survey found that 37 percent consider former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani a gay-rights supporter, followed by U.S. Senator John McCain at 13 percent.
- Thirty-three percent of all respondents say they are “very interested” in politics compared to 22 percent of the Knowledge Networks general population sample. And 36 percent said they became more interested in politics during their “coming out” period.