What happened to the Gays for Trump?

Voters in Germany maintained a few global trends this past weekend: They kicked out incumbents, their youth moved to the right, and they delivered another surprise. Their radical, anti-immigrant party (Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD) finished second, and was likely boosted by some LGBTQ voters. The rightward shift of gay, lesbian, and bisexual voters is a dynamic playing out across western Europe. In the UK, France, and now Germany, gay voters or their allies are backing far-right or nativist political parties at growing rates. That queer shift to the right doesn’t seem to be materializing in the United States, however. During the 2024 election, LGBTQ voters actually got more Democratic than in 2020. What explains this gulf, especially as so many other global political trends replicate themselves in the US? After reviewing the trends and historical context, I offer two theories: that Europeans have had vastly different experiences with international migration than those in the US; and that the American LGBTQ community has historical reasons to distrust a radicalized Republican Party in a two-party system. The “homonativist” shift of European gays and their allies It was once thought that the growing public acceptance of queerness and homosexuality would reinforce — or at least coincide — with generally more progressive views on political issues, both in and outside the United States. But that doesn’t appear to be the case. In Germany, those trends can be traced back to before the pandemic: Multiple analyses of LGBTQ voters found small, but sustained support from gay voters for AfD and center-right parties in 2021’s elections when compared to the 2017 federal elections there. One study even found that the probability of voting for the AfD increased in 2021 if you were LGBTQ. This year, one pre-election survey suggested AfD would receive the highest share of LGBTQ voters’ support among the major parties. (The AfD having a charismatic gay leader this year likely didn’t hurt either.) As the researcher and political analyst François Valentin writes, this dynamic has been true in France and the United Kingdom going back to as early as 2015. One analysis of vote choice in 2015 found that it was married gay men who were most likely to support the anti-immigrant National Front (FN), the French far-right party, in that year’s regional elections (and more likely than married straight men), while married gay women supported the FN at about the same level as straight women. It was during that time that the FN went through a refresh, becoming less antagonistic to LGBTQ people and courting them. In the United Kingdom, the center-left Labour Party has generally held strong support from lesbian, gay, and bisexual voters, while far-right parties have struggled to gain a substantial share of these voters in recent years. But across Europe, there has emerged a different kind of electorate: one with progressive views on homosexuality, but conservative or reactionary views on immigration. Nearly a third of the British electorate could fall under this “homonativist” classification, according to one analysis prepared for the London School of Economics. Far-right parties in France and Germany have been nearly single-mindedly focused on tougher policies toward migrants and refugees, suspicion of Islam in particular, opposition to European Union integration, and a reclamation of native or national identity. The UK’s Conservative party has embraced many of these nativist ideals as well. British researcher Jesse Grainger, of King’s College London, suggests this focus on immigration and nativism may be key to understanding LGBTQ voters’ growing support for the far-right. “Cultural studies have also theorised that pro-LGBT attitudes may be increasing because of immigration,” he writes, “as progressive LGBT+ values can be weaponised as a means of differentiating the native liberal population from the backward immigrant population — constructing a tolerant vs intolerant binary.” In other words, European far-right political parties have created various binaries around identity, security and public safety that place migrants and queer people at odds. And queer voters frustrated with the status quo have a welcome home in newer or rehabilitated far-right parties, particularly in France and Germany. Why “homonativists” still haven’t gotten their footing in the US Not only have LGBTQ voters not seen the same rightward drift as their European counterparts, but they’ve actually seen the opposite: From 1992 to 2016, exit polls have shown this bloc of voters have been steadily getting more liberal. (Exit polls can be noisy and unreliable, and usually corrected months after elections, but are still the best tool we have for measuring trends for groups like LGBTQ voters.) In 2020, polling did suggest a rightward turn for queer voters: Trump cut into the Democratic margin of victory with the demographic compared to 2016 by nearly 20 points. In 2024, signs were pointing toward another year of Republican improvement with these voters. But the final result was another twist: Kamala Harris won the highest level of support from LGBTQ voters in modern history — 86 percent. In fact, LGBTQ voters were one of the only demographics that shifted left last year. And their ideologies have remained consistently liberal — 47 percent of LGBTQ men and 63 percent of LGBTQ women identify as liberal. The explanations here are various — starting with the unique American political experience of the gay rights movement. But one key thing to understand is that while most European nations have multiparty systems that can give voters a sense that the most extreme positions of any given party will be checked by a team of rivals, the US really only has two parties. And while both started off as hostile to gay rights, the Democratic Party has been quicker to tolerate, accept, and champion LGBTQ people. The Republican Party has been much more hostile. That’s been particularly true during the last five years, which have featured GOP fearmongering around trans athletes and bathrooms, “grooming,” and “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. In this way, the Republican Party went in the opposite direction of many European far-right or right-wing parties’ toning down of homophobic or bigoted speech and positions. Young queer people may be turned off from any kind of ideological or policy pitch from Republicans who have largely turned toward bigoted, discriminatory, or hostile speech and policy. And those that do sour on the GOP have only two real options: Join the Democrats or ignore the political process completely. Some of American LGBTQ voters’ liberalism can also be explained by demographics. In the US, LGBTQ people skew younger and female, a part of the electorate that is more likely to hold more liberal views to begin with. And a small but growing share of Gen Z in particular identifies as transgender — meaning the Republican Party’s turn against trans people and trans rights is also likely to turn off potential future voters who are solidifying their ideological and partisan identities in their early years of political activity. And immigration, has just not functioned as a wedge issue in the same way it has for European LGBT voters or voters who support gay marriage or gay rights. America’s own immigration challenges are much more muted than what European countries have experienced — places like France and Germany have endured more of a shock because of the magnitude of the influx of refugees and migrants over the last 10 years, the degree of security and terrorist threats they’ve faced, and the relative size of their new foreign-born populations. Our own American mythos of being a land of immigrants has also generally made the country more accepting of immigrants over the last 30 years. It’s only recently that the country has taken a sharp anti-immigrant turn, largely because of economic anxiety and concerns over public order. And though some Republican activists and politicians tried to use the same rhetorical approach to persuade some (primarily) gay male voters, they just haven’t been as successful as European far-right parties. Of course, none of these dynamics are set in stone, and ideologies may continue to change. But for now, the prospect of a growing right-wing LGBTQ movement in the US seems to face many more hurdles.

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What happened to the Gays for Trump?