Yesterday, Hollywood insiders revealed how they helped get President Obama re-elected. But it turns out that it wasn't just movie folk that moved the president towards victory -- a new poll from Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law and Gallup found that the gay vote made a difference in the election results. The New York Times reports:
...backing Mr. Obama received from gay voters also has a claim on having been decisive. Mitt Romney and Mr. Obama won roughly an equal share of votes among straight voters nationwide, exit polls showed. And, a study argues, Mr. Romney appears to have won a narrow victory among straight voters in the swing states of Ohio and Florida.
Mr. Obama’s more than three-to-one edge in exit polls among the 5 percent of voters who identified themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual was more than enough to give him the ultimate advantage, according to the study, by Gary J. Gates of the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, in conjunction with Gallup. The results are consistent with earlier research on the number and political beliefs of gay voters...
Exit polls showed that 76 percent of voters who identified as gay supported Mr. Obama last week, and that 22 percent supported Mr. Romney. Among straight people, each candidate received 49 percent of the vote.
The article goes on to say that a growing number of Republican strategists feel that the right needs to garner more support among gays, and that they should begin to reconsider their stance on issues such as the freedom to marry.
Looks like supporting gay rights might just be -- wait for it! -- the wave of the future.
