In the Race for the White House, the Stakes are Clearer Now More Than Ever

Today, HRC released the following statement on tonight’s primary and caucus election results. 

“We can’t afford to see Donald Trump or Ted Cruz sworn in on Inauguration Day next January,” said HRC President Chad Griffin. “Both Cruz and Trump have endorsed a future that includes rolling back nationwide marriage equality and supporting religious refusal bills that would empower government officials to discriminate and deny service to LGBT people. Tonight the stakes are more clear now than ever: Hillary Clinton is the champion we need who can beat either of these anti-LGBT candidates this fall, and fight for full federal equality from day one in the Oval Office.”

Last week, HRC released a new video to its members and supporters highlighting just how much is at stake for LGBT Americans in this year’s presidential election.

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has repeatedly made clear he will overturn nationwide marriage equality in recent weeks, including during Thursday night’s debate in Detroit. He said he is “very strongly” committed to appointing judges who support allowing businesses to refuse service and discriminate against LGBT people for religious reasons. He also told 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 www.hrc.org/2016RepublicanFacts/donald-trump-opposes-nationwide-marriage-equality

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. 

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