Gay and Lesbian Candidate Electability

Abstract

There is a sizable literature researching how individual's demographics (gender, age, race/ethnicity, religiosity, and political ideology) affect their opinions toward gays and lesbians, homosexuality, and LGBT rights. However, there is little to no literature regarding how these variables affect whether an individual would vote for a gay or lesbian candidate for elected office (candidate electability). That is what this research sets out to do in addition to determining how gay and lesbian candidate electability compares to that of their straight counterparts. To accomplish this an experimental design was used where each respondent was given two hypothetical candidate biographies with one being the control candidate (straight man) and the other being one of four randomly assigned candidates (straight man, straight woman, gay, or lesbian). The respondents were then asked to choose which candidate they preferred to vote for and how strongly they felt about their decision. This information was compiled to create an electability scale for each of the four types of candidates. Respondents were also asked about their demographic information. The results indicate that gay and lesbian candidates have lower electability than their straight counterparts with gay candidates having slightly higher electability than lesbian candidates. A person's religiosity (how religious they are) has a significant negative relationship with both gay and lesbian candidate electability. There is also evidence that the more conservative an individual is the less likely they would be to vote for both a gay or a lesbian candidate. At minimum, some support was found for all of the hypotheses concerning respondent demographic variables and their effects on gay candidate electability. Less consistent results were found concerning lesbian candidate electability.