As the U.S. 2020 Election continues to count ballots, one study is informing us of how LGBTQ Southerners prepared for this year.
The Campaign for Southern Equality and Western North Carolina Community Health Services recently joined together to conduct a survey concerning LGBTQ Southern voters. They surveyed 5,617 participants across the American South throughout the last year.
After asking participants a series of questions about their interest in participating in voting for the 2020 election, the two organizations found that nearly 92 percent of the survey’s participants were registered to vote. This is larger than the general U.S. population, which stands at about 79 percent registered.
Though, this large number of LGBTQ voters in the South isn’t necessarily a surprise. According to the Advocate and the Williams Institute, there are 9 million LGBTQ voters in the U.S. Then, the American South holds around 37 percent of the entire U.S. population. With so many people in the South already, there’s no surprise that there are active LGBTQ voters as well.
But that’s not all, the two organizations also asked respondents about other factors of their backgrounds such as their highest level of education, their race and ethnicity, their gender identities, and their past experiences with emotional or physical abuse/violence. In addition, respondents were asked if they felt that their vote had a positive impact on their country and communities. The people who answered yes the most were people with Master’s Degrees, people who made over $150K, Asians or Asian Americans, cisgender people, and people who were both inexperienced with emotional abuse and never fear emotional abuse.
Source: The Advocate, The Williams Institute,
