Following Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s success in the majority of Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, the Human Rights Campaign has released a new video highlighting what’s at stake in the 2016 election.
“In the biggest showdown of the campaign so far, the strong showing from both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump foreshadows the stakes for millions of LGBT Americans in November,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “As pro-equality voters look toward Election Day, the differences between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on LGBT equality are enormous. Hillary Clinton has presented a clear vision for creating a better future for LGBT people across this nation. Donald Trump has demonstrated that he would block full LGBT equality as president, whether it’s by appointing Supreme Court justices to overturn nationwide marriage equality or by supporting legislation that would lead to more Kim Davis-like discrimination.”
Trump has doubled down on overturning nationwide marriage equality in recent weeks, telling Christian Broadcasting News that voters can “trust me” to reverse nationwide marriage equality and Fox News Sunday that, if elected he would appoint justices who would reverse the landmark Supreme Court decision that led to marriage equality nationwide.
Trump has also endorsed the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act,” a bill that would lead to more Kim Davis style discrimination, For example, under FADA, an employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs could refuse to process a claim for survivor benefits for the same-sex spouse of a servicemember. For more on Donald Trump’s record on LGBT issues, visit http://www.hrc.org/
The Human Rights Campaign has endorsed Hillary Clinton, and its members and supporters have made thousands of GOTV calls into Super Tuesday states in the last week. Prior to that, HRC opened offices and sent staff to South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire and Iowa where it made thousands of voter contacts in the states on behalf of Hillary Clinton.
With 1.5 million members and supporters nationwide, HRC is planning an unprecedented organizational effort to register and mobilize the nation’s pro-equality majority, and elect pro-LGBT candidates up and down the ballot. In 2016, HRC expects that the pro-equality vote will be larger, stronger, and more energized than at any point in history.
Exit polls show that in 2012 at least six million LGB Americans voted in an election decided by less than five million votes. Today, in key states like Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, the population of LGBT adults is greater than the average margin of victory in the last three presidential elections.
Polling done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for HRC shows that a 55 percent majority of voters are less likely to support a candidate for president who opposes allowing same-sex couples to marry. This majority includes Independents, married women and white millennials. All of these groups voted Republican in the last congressional election.
