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Nov 17, 2010
Republicans captured 31 percent of the LGBT vote in the midterm elections, according to national exit polls. The number jumped from 19 percent in 2008.
Despite the shift, Republicans have expressed no interest in adopting pro-equality positions.
“I have been very concerned over these last two years that the connection between the gay rights community and the Democratic Party is in danger of being broken, because I think expectations were set so high as a result of the 2008 election, and people are extremely disappointed,” Richard Socarides, who was President Bill Clinton’s adviser on gay rights, told Huffington Post.
Socarides said LGBT voters are growing impatient with Obama for failing to put their issues on the front burner.
But another factor behind the change in voting behavior is what looks like growing acceptance of equality among mainstream Republicans nationally, although not in Wisconsin.
For example, conservative attorney Ted Olson has been a central figure, along with David Boies, in the legal battle to overturn California’s Prop. 8, which banned same-sex marriage. Olson represented former President George W. Bush in the Supreme Court case that handed him the keys to the White House.
Former Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman made headlines during the summer when he came out and was embraced as a gay man by Bush, GOP chairman Michael Steele and other Republican leaders.
The Log Cabin Republicans also have also played a role in changing LGBT perceptions about their party, particularly through the high-profile lawsuit challenging the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
Still, most Republican leaders have strongly opposed lifting the policy, and U.S. Rep. Charles Djou, Hawaii, who was one of the few Republicans supporting the repeal of ‘don’t ask,’ lost his seat on Nov. 2.
LCR director R. Clarke Cooper said Republicans performed better with LGBT voters in the mid-term election because the focus was on the economy rather than social issues, and Darlene Nipper, deputy executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, agreed.
“There is enormous fear and frustration among people all across the nation, and a factor is a rocky, stalled economy and high unemployment rate,” Nipper told Huffington Post’s Amanda Terkel. “When the party in power doesn’t seem to be making it better, some people make their anger known at the ballot box. Is that the case here? It’s tough to know for sure without people actually saying why they voted the way they did.”
- From staff and wire reports
