WSJ - Washington Wire
Gay Marriage: Wedge Issue in Wealthy Suburbs?
By Dante Chinni
Getty Images
Beltway traffic in McLean, Va., a wealthy Washington, D.C., suburb.
Much has been made of the political implications of President Barack Obama’s announcement
this week that he personally supports gay marriage. The news had hardly broken in Washington
before conversations quickly turned to what it means for the 2012 election.
Some tea-party conservatives seemed sure it would cost him the re-election. Some analysts saw
a fundraising boon and a way to fire up his base. Others said it would fire up his opponents.
But as commentators debate the impacts of Mr. Obama’s words, a few things are clear. Polls
show a growing acceptance of gay marriage in the U.S. And Census data show the number of
same-sex households is a growing across the nation.
Look at the two maps below derived from an analysis of Census 2010 data by Gary J. Gates of
UCLA’s Williams Institute. The top shows the number of same-sex households in the U.S. by
county in 2000. The bottom shows those households in 2010.
That map gets a lot more purple between 2000 and 2010. And that’s not just because places with
many same-sex households got more of them, but also because same-sex households expanded
into more places over that time.
Mr. Gates believes that in some of those very dark rural counties – like those in rural north and
south – the high numbers are due to small sample sizes combined with large households where
Census surveys were likely filled out incorrectly. But even taking those mistallies into account, the
trend is unmistakable.
What this all means for 2012 is not completely clear, but when you break down those county
numbers into Patchwork Nation’s 12 geographic/demographic county types, some interesting
patterns emerge. There are three county types that sit well above the national average for samesex households – the big city Industrial Metropolis, collegiateCampus and Careers and the
wealthy Monied Burbs. Those three types have, respectively, 7.4, 6.4 and 6.3 same-sex
households per 1,000. The national county average is 5.5 same-sex households per 1,000.
That means people in those counties are more likely to know gay and lesbian couples and they
are probably more likely be sympathetic to the idea of gay marriage. A Pew Forum on Religion
and Public Life survey from 2008 broken down with Patchwork Nation’s county types found that
60 percent of the people who live in those three county types said “homosexuality as a way of life
should be accepted.”
That’s potentially very significant for 2012. Democrats always win the Campus and Careers and
Industrial Metropolis counties by large amounts, but Monied Burbs can be close and are often
decisive. In other words, gay marriage could be a wedge issue in the suburbs that helps Mr.
Obama and hurts presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, who supports a constitutional ban on
gay marriages.
The Patchwork Nation breakdown also shows there are some places where Mr. Obama’s gay
marriage announcement likely won’t go over well. In the culturally conservativeEvangelical
Epicenters, agricultural Tractor Country counties and the Mormon Outposts, the number of samesex households is far below the national average – 3.3, 2.2 and 2.1 households per 1,000
respectively. But any losses in those places aren’t likely to matter to Mr. Obama. He will almost
certainly lose in them by large margins.
And while there have been question of whether Mr. Obama’s support of gay marriage could hurt
him with African Americans, in the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll 64% of blacks said a
candidate’s gay marriage position would not affect their vote – 12 points higher than the similar
figure for whites.
But the real 2012 issue for Mr. Obama may lie in states like Colorado, Florida and Ohio. A few
thousand votes here or there could be the difference between winning and losing those states.
What do these same-sex household numbers tell us about the impact of his statement on that
critical turf? It might help him on the whole – those states have more same-sex households than
average when taken together – but the individual pictures are a bit more complicated.
For instance, his new stance would arguably help him in Colorado where there are many samesex households around populous Denver. It might help him in southern Florida, but it wouldn’t in
the north – where there are many Evangelical Epicenters – and the I-4 corridor in the state’s
center is hard to judge.
And in Ohio, which many analysts consider a true anyone-could-win tossup, the announcement
might hurt Mr. Obama. Ohio has many small-town Service Worker Center counties that lean
Republican, but that can also provide Democrats with many votes. Those counties have lower
numbers of same-sex households and, in national surveys, they tend to be less sympathetic to
“homosexuality as a way of life.”
Does that mean Mr. Obama would have to write off those counties in Ohio or Florida’s I-4 corridor
now? Or that he has Colorado sewn up? Not at all. While Gay marriage is the topic de jour, this
election still figures to be about the economy. And past polls have also shown that gay marriage
simply doesn’t rate high on the list of issues people vote on(though those polls were taken preannouncement).
What it does mean is the 2012 campaign has a new wrinkle and national figures concerning “what
people think about gay marriage” aren’t going to matter as much as the individual circumstances
on the ground in different communities. And those communities and their understanding of the
issue are changing fast.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/05/11/gay-marriage-wedge-issue-in-wealthy-suburbs/