This is really interesting: Hunter College has released a national poll on the 2008 primary season that samples only the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual population of the United States. There are a number of remarkable bits about this poll:
In the Democratic primary, Clinton holds a commanding 63%--22% lead over Barack Obama, with everyone else in single digits. Kucinich actually comes in 4th at 5%.
On the Republican side, the sample size was incredibly small, only 78 people, rendering the results useless. This is because only 13% of those who said they would vote in a primary indicated they were self-identified Republicans. I figured the number would be low, but that is really, really low.
The partisan self-identification was 84% Democratic or lean Democratic, while the ideological self-identification was 61% liberal to only 8% conservative. Those are pretty overwhelming numbers.
Here is the kicker: the demographic will clearly grow in the future. 91% of the population surveyed was under 50 years of age, and fully 30% was under 30 years of age. In a decade or two, as coming out becomes more acceptable among all age cohorts, this should result in the LGB demographic growing from 3-4% of the electorate to 5-6% of the electorate, possibly even 7%. Increasing the size of a demographic that is that heavily Democratic and that heavily liberal will result in a 1% gain for Democrats and progressives for every 2% it increases as a percentage of the overall electorate. So, along with the growth of the non-white and non-Christian population, here is another growing demographic Republicans and conservatives have done everything they can to alienate for another generation or two.
Cool stuff. I love the advancements we have seen in polling techniques and creativity over the past five or ten years. Microtargeting, psychographics, online polling--cool stuff. And it is very hard not to see a bright future for Democrats and progressives when one looks closely at the data.
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