President Trump and Buttigieg
< 1 min read

President Donald Trump has intimated in an interview that he would vote for a gay man to be president.

In a podcast with Fox News Journalist Geraldo Rivera, the President was asked whether Americans would vote for a gay man to be president?

“I think so,” Trump said. “I think there would be some that wouldn’t, and I wouldn’t be among that group, to be honest with you.”

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“I think that it doesn’t seem to be hurting Pete ‘Boot-edge-edge,’” Trump said of the openly gay presidential contender.

“But there would certainly be a group,” the president repeated, “that probably wouldn’t. But you and I would not be in that group.”

“We would not,” Rivera responded.

This shows Trump is again siding with the majority of Americans who say they would vote for a gay candidate, like Pete Buttigieg.

A 2019 Gallup poll found that 76 per cent of Americans would vote for a gay or lesbian presidential candidate — just behind the 80 per cent who said they would vote for an evangelical Christian. Other groups are rated as more acceptable: Over 90 per cent of Americans said they would vote for a black, Catholic, Hispanic, female or Jewish candidate.

But there are groups less popular for electoral politics than gay people: Muslims, atheists, socialists, people over 70 and people under 40 (a group that includes Buttigieg, 38).

When Gallup began asking Americans about their willingness to vote for a gay or lesbian presidential candidate in 1978, just 26 per cent said “yes.”

Buttigieg is a long way from winning the Democratic nomination. He is fifth in national polls behind Sanders, Biden, Bloomberg and Warren but with Super Tuesday looming he still has every chance.

Last Updated on Feb 15, 2020


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