11.30.07
New Poll of LGB Voters Finds Clinton Leading Obama, Edwards
A new poll of lesbian, gay, and bisexual voters, conducted by Hunter College, has found that 63% of LGB likely voters in the Democratic primaries say they will support Sen. Hillary Clinton, while 22% are backing Sen. Barack Obama, and 7% will vote for John Edwards.
The poll also found that about 75% of the respondents said they are likely to vote in the primaries, suggesting that LGB voters are much more politically involved than the general population.
“That’s an unusually high percentage, it’s just huge,” Hunter College professor Kenneth Sherrill, one of the study’s investigators, told The Advocate. “You rarely find such a high percentage of people saying they’re likely to vote in the primaries — only the most politicized groups in the population will do that.”
–72% of LGB likely voters consider Senator Clinton a supporter of gay rights, with Senator Obama at 52% and former Senator Edwards at 41%. On the Republican side, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani was at 37%, followed by Sen. John McCain at 13%.
–When asked about the proposed federal law making it illegal to discriminate against lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in employment, a majority of LGBs (by a margin of 60% to 37%) said that those seeking to pass the law were wrong to remove protections for transgender people in order to get the votes necessary for passage in Congress.