Most people don’t have confidence that a Ron DeSantis presidency would benefit LGBTQ+ people, but he still inspires more faith than most other Republican candidates.
That’s the finding of a new poll from The Economist and YouGov.
In a survey of 1,500 adult citizens conducted between Sunday and Tuesday, just 8% of respondents say lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people would be better off under DeSantis.
The poll reveals a gender gap. While 12% of men believe DeSantis would benefit LGBTQ+ people as President, only 4% of women feel the same way.
Meanwhile, 40% of respondents believe LGBTQ+ people would be worse off, with 24% saying things would be no different and 28% saying they aren’t sure.
Republicans, conservatives and people who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 were less convinced DeSantis would be bad for LGBTQ+ people. The poll found 13% of Republicans and 14% of conservatives and Trump voters said they would be better off, against 17% of Republicans, 16% of conservatives and 15% of Trump voters who said the opposite.
The polling was in the field during the tail end of a news cycle in which DeSantis’ campaign circulated a “Pride Month” video that painted Trump as too accommodating to LGBTQ+ people. The clip, which was deleted eventually by the creator, included various edgelord-style memes and motifs, including favorable representations of Christian Bale performing as the serial killer Patrick Bateman in the film “American Psycho” and Brad Pitt playing Achilles in “Troy.”
“I think identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants, I think that’s totally fair game,” DeSantis said in defense of the video on an episode of Tomi Lahren is Fearless on Outkick.
Trump performs best out of all 2024 Republicans in this survey, with 12% of respondents saying LGBTQ+ people would be better off were he President. More Republicans, conservatives and 2020 Trump voters think LGBTQ+ people would be better off than not if Trump wins a second term in 2024.
Some other Republicans are regarded more skeptically on LGBTQ+ issues than Trump or DeSantis.
While Nikki Haley ties DeSantis, with 8% believing she’d be a boon for LGBTQ+ people, everyone else polls at least marginally worse, including Chris Christie and Mike Pence (7%), Tim Scott (6%), Larry Elder and Vivek Ramaswamy (5%), Will Hurd, Asa Hutchinson and Francis Suarez (4%), and Doug Burgum (3%).
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