LGBTQ+ people made up a disproportionately high percentage of voters on Super Tuesday, and a large chunk of them voted for Senator Bernie Sanders.
Super Tuesday is the most pivotal day for the Democratic presidential primary. Fourteen states hold primary elections on this day, including the two most populated states in the country, California and Texas.
According to an NBC News Exit Poll, 9 percent of Super Tuesday voters identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. This is remarkable because only an estimated 4.5 percent of the total U.S. population identifies as LGBTQ. In 11 out of 14 Super Tuesday states, LGBTQ voters turned out at about double their states’ estimated LGBTQ populations.
Out of all LGBT voters, 42 percent cast their ballot for Senator Bernie Sanders, while 22 percent voted for Senator Elizabeth Warren. Former Vice President Joe Biden earned only 19 percent of the LGBT vote, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg got only 6 percent.
The poll results also reveal how LGBT voters differed from non-LGBT voters. Non-LGBT voters backed Biden at 34 percent, Sanders at 31 percent, Warren at 13 percent, and Bloomberg at 12 percent.
It’s “no surprise” that two-thirds of LGBT voters backed the two most progressive candidates in the race, according to Joanna Wuest, a Princeton University postdoctoral fellow researching politics.
“Due to the worsening economic status of many folks under 30 and the economic disparities that exist in the LGBTQ population across ages, it would be no surprise if these voters were working class or downwardly mobile professional types who have come to support redistributive policies like single-payer health care, a federal jobs guarantee or a student loan debt-forgiveness program,” Wuest told NBC OUT.
The NBC News Exit Poll was conducted in 12 out of 14 Super Tuesday states. As ballot counts are still rolling in, the poll results may change after this story is published.
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