Support for LGBTQ+ protections is tied more to politics than population

This may not come as a surprise to those familiar with politics. South Carolina is a conservative state and New Mexico is a liberal state, so that’s not going to change. However, one of the states with her third highest percentage of LGBTQ+ residents was the very red state of Nebraska. Very Blue Hawaii tied for last place at 46th place.

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In fact, PRRI found no significant correlation between a state’s LGBTQ+ population and its politics. Members of that community were much more likely to say they were Democrats than Republicans (again, you guessed it), but only one in 10 American girlfriends said he was a Democrat. is LGBTQ+, it does not dictate the political identity of the entire state.

PRRI also asked respondents whether they supported legal protections for LGBTQ+ Americans. The idea was widely supported, with about three-quarters of Americans expressing support for the idea. Interestingly, a state’s level of support did not correlate with the size of its LGBTQ+ population.

You can check it out below. As the state’s LGBTQ+ population grows, one might expect support for legal protections to increase as well. Instead, we see a large cloud in which some states have large LGBTQ+ populations but have weak protections, while others have relatively small populations but strongly support the idea.

But notice what happens if we color code each state for the 2020 presidential vote. Now you can see that most of the states at the top (more supportive of protections) are in blue. This means you voted for President Biden. Most of the bottom part is red.

In fact, when you compare the level of support for legal protections to their vote share in 2020, you see a real correlation. States that voted more for Biden, and Utah, are more supportive of protections.

In the abstract, this makes sense. PRRI’s research found that Democrats were far more supportive of these protections than Republicans, and states with more Democrats were more likely to vote for Biden. Again, the size of the LGBTQ+ population in any state is small enough that it only makes up a small portion of the electorate.

Nevertheless, it is surprising that the best predictor of support for protecting LGBTQ+ Americans from discrimination is not the percentage of LGBTQ+ people in a state. That’s the percentage of Democrats.