A Vote for Homophobia? Variation in Homophobic Beliefs Among Trump Voters by Political Affiliation and Beliefs

ABSTRACT Mainstream homophobia is trending. From the onslaught of viral social media accounts that spread homophobia to the incorporation of prejudicial talking points on news platforms, the rhetoric that is being trafficked today has direct roots in an earlier wave of American homophobia; the characterization of the LGBT+ community as inherent child predators, or “groomers.” While the language of groomerism and explicit homophobia is associated with the political right and supporters of Donald Trump, the variation of homophobic belief among his nontraditional supporters has yet to be interrogated. This paper analyzes the level of homophobic beliefs among voters for Donald Trump ( N = 560) in the 2020 presidential election stratified by political party affiliation and political beliefs using nationally representative data from the 2022 General Social Survey. Among the N = 560 Trump voter respondents, 64.87% were Republican and 36.13% were other political party members, 69.86% were conservative and 30.14% had other political views. Homophobic beliefs are measured by both belief in the right to gay marriage and the morality of gay relationships. Results from logistic regressions indicate a significantly higher level of homophobic beliefs among conservative and Republican Trump voters compared to Trump voters of other political views and affiliations respectively, controlling for age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Conservatism was found to be the strongest predictor of homophobic beliefs in morality of relationships and marriage respectively (OR: 2.61, p < 0.001; OR: 2.43, p < 0.001). Results highlight a need for further research on the causes of the increased propensity to hold homophobic views and the power of virtually based movements to take hold in offline spaces.