Because LGB people are a small percentage of the population, some may think that our influence in elections must be minimal. In fact, though, it is big enough to sometimes represent the margin of victory, even in presidential elections.
Statistics compiled by The New York Times based on exit interviews at polling stations in the 2004 presidential election showed that 4% of respondents reported that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual. This makes the LGB vote larger than several other established voting blocs, including the Asian-American vote (2%), the Native-American vote (<1%), the Jewish vote (3%), and about two-thirds the size of the hotly contested Latino vote (6%). (Of course, some LGB voters also belong to those groupings, so there is a degree of overlap.) “Transgender” was not offered as a response category, and thus cannot be included in this discussion but could further increase the 4% statistic.
Notably, 4% of the overall electorate represents more than George W. Bush’s margin of victory in 2004, which was just 3% over John Kerry. Further, the margin between Bush and Kerry was less than 4% in one out of every five states: Iowa (1.8%), Michigan (3.4%), Minnesota (3.5%), New Hampshire (1.3%), New Mexico (1.1%), Nevada (2.6%), Ohio (2.5%), Oregon (2.9%), Pennsylvania (2.2%), and Wisconsin (0.4%). These ten states represent 106 electoral votes out of a total of 538, or nearly 20%. A shift of just 19 electoral votes would have been sufficient to change the outcome of the 2004 election.
Also consider that in historical terms, the 2004 election was not even an especially close one. The LGB population’s 4% of the vote was larger than the margin of the popular vote victory in four of the eleven other presidential elections held over the past 50 years, including 1960 (0.2%), 1968 (0.7%), 1976 (2.1%), and 2000 (0.5%).
The LGB 4% of the vote was also equal to or greater than the margin of victory in the 2006 governor elections in Minnesota (1%) and Nevada (4%) as well as U.S. Senate elections in Montana (1.1%) and Virginia (0.4%). Notably, the Democratic victories in Montana and Virginia were sufficient to switch control of the Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats.
It is also worth noting that the LGB vote is strongly, but not monolithically, pro-Democrat. With 77% supporting Kerry, LGB voters were the second most solid pro- Democratic grouping, after African Americans (88%). Still, nearly one in four (23%) LGB voters in 2004 cast their ballot for the Republican presidential candidate, roughly the same percentage as in 2000 (25%) and in 1996 (22%). Although the Democrats are widely considered to be the party more receptive to LGB-related social issues, many LGB people vote Republican because they support a smaller-government, lower-tax libertarian agenda.
Finally, the size of the LGB voting bloc has room for growth, with 4% being more of a floor than a ceiling. It can safely be assumed that not all LGB voters who were polled identified themselves as such, either because they wished to maintain confidentiality or because they may not be completely “out” even to themselves. However, the emerging generation of voters is much more likely than earlier generations to be comfortable with their sexual orientation and thus to self-identify as openly LGB. Since people also tend to turn out to vote in higher rates as they get older, the LGB share of the electorate should continue to rise.
By Raymond A. Smith, Ph.D.
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Political Science
Columbia University and New York University
© Raymond A. Smith, 2008
