Early exit polls culled from The New York Times show LGBT support for President Donald Trump doubled since his match-up with Hillary Clinton, when he only managed to capture 14 percent of the demographic.
The Times, querying 15,590 people at polling places, early voting sites, and via phone calls, found that 28 percent of self-identified LGBT people supported Trump, while 61 percent went for Joe Biden (Biden is currently leading in the Electoral College and popular vote tallies). Clinton managed to nab 78 percent of the LGBT vote, according to national exit polls from 2016.
While the numbers don't capture the full queer electorate — there are approximately 9 million registered LGBTQ+ voters in the U.S. — they are relatively surprising since Trump's presidency has been a disaster for the LGBTQ+ community and most Americans in general, thanks to his mishandling of COVID-19. While Trump and his surrogates, including his children, have claimed he supports LGBTQ+ rights, his actions — from banning trans people from the military to lending support to antigay cases at the Supreme Court to working to erase queers from the Census — have proven the opposite. Here's a list of many of the anti-LGBTQ+ actions Trump has taken while in office.
The question remains whether Trump's embrace of nativism and racism has been a rallying cry for white LGBTQ+ people, who are far from immune from bigotry.
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