IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

Contact: Jeffrey S. Garber, President

OpusComm Group, Inc.
Jeff@opuscommgroup.com
(315) 637-2018
www.opuscommgroup.com
www.glcensus.org 

National Gay Poll Reveals 2004 PresidentialChoice

56% of respondents would vote for John Kerry for President

92% say gay rights issues are on their voting minds - even above the economy

79% of gays state that legalization of same-sex marriage is #1 concern

95% of gays are registered to vote

Syracuse, New York – February, 2004 If the presidential election were held today, John Kerry overwhelming would be the 2004 presidential choice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered (GLBT) community, according to a new national poll conducted last week on the heals of Howard Dean's withdrawal from the presidential race.

GLCensus Partners (a Syracuse University, OpusComm Group partnership) conducted the poll of 2,058 GLBT respondents online from February 20 through February 23. The research group maintains one of the nation's largest GLBT national research panels.

 Revealed findings of the following questions:

-         Q1: If the 2004 presidential election were held today, for whom would you vote?

-         Q2: In national elections for offices such as President and U.S. Congress, what issues, problems or concerns are the most important to you personally in deciding whether and how to vote?

-          Q3: There are a number of important issues that the national gay rights movement has emphasized.  Of the issues listed below what is the importance of each goal as it relates in your decision when voting for a President in the upcoming 2004 election?

-          Q4: Compared to other issues, how important are issues involving GLBT rights to you in deciding whether and how to vote?

Q1: If the 2004 presidential election were held today, for whom would you vote?

 Possible answers were as follows
George Bush
John Edwards
John Kerry
Dennis Kucinich
Al Sharpton
A candidate from other than the Democratic or Republican party
Not sure

 There is some difference by gender and self-identification* as shown below:

 

Candidate	Gay men	Lesbians
Bush	4%	1%
Edwards	23.3%	16.6%
Kerry	56.2%	57.8%
Kucinich	3.2%	6.2%
Sharpton	.5%	1.0%
Candidate from other than the Democratic or Republican party	2.6%	2.3%
Not sure	10.2%	15.1%
	100.0%	100.0%

Gay men are male respondents who identified as gay, homosexual or queer. Lesbians are female respondents who identified as gay, lesbian, homosexual or queer.

Q2: In national elections for offices such as President and U.S. Congress, what issues, problems or concerns are the most important to you personally in deciding whether and how to vote?  (Please check all that apply.)

Rank		Total base
1.	GLBT rights issues	91.4%
2.	Civil rights	81.1%
3.	Civil liberties	74.8%
4.	Economy	74.3%
5.	Jobs and unemployment	69.0%
6.	Health care	66.2%
7.	Environment	59.9%
8.	AIDS	53.5%
9.	Abortion/pro-life/pro-choice	53.1%
10.	Foreign policy	48.5%
11.	Women’s rights	48.3%
12.	Social Security	47.7%
13.	Education K-12	44.2%
14.	Taxes	40.8%
15.	Privacy	37.8%
16.	Energy policy	36.3%
17.	Education — Higher education	36.3%
18.	Iraq/Middle East	31.3%
19.	Gun control/gun rights	29.3%
20.	Terrorism/homeland security	28.7%
21.	Political reform	28.3%
22.	Crime and law enforcement	28.1%
23.	National defense	23.6%
24.	Welfare	22.3%
25.	Transportation	17.5%

 " American gay voters clearly have a number of concerns on their mind when they enter the voting booth; but none more important than gay rights and civil liberties," said Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group Inc., and founder of the GLCensus Partners. "This is even above the economy, which the respondents ranked very high on their list. For this reason alone, a potential presidential candidate would have to be sensitive to this constituency's needs in order to win their vote as a bloc,"

 Q3: There are a number of important issues that the national gay rights movement has emphasized. Of the issues listed below what is the importance of each goal as it relates in your decision when voting for a President in the upcoming 2004 election?

 Three issues stood out from the rest. In order, they are:
1)     Legal recognition of same-sex marriages for tax, estate and insurance purposes
2)     Parental rights for both parents in a same-sex union
3)     Equal opportunity in employment

 

Rank		Extremely important	Very important	Somewhat important	Not important
1.	Legal recognition of same-sex marriage for tax, estate and insurance purposes	78.5%	14.1%	6.1%	1.3%
2.	Parental rights for both parents insame-sex union	74.8%	17.4%	6.5%	1.3%
3.	Equal opportunity in employment	72.3%	22.5%	4.7%	.5%
4.	Right to legal adoption	64.5%	24.1%	9.2%	2.1%
5.	Recognition of civil unions	57.7%	27.6%	10.7%	4.0%
6.	Hate crimes legislation to specifically punish “gay bashing”	55.7%	26.6%	14.1%	3.6%
7.	Increased funding to find a cure for HIV/AIDS	44.4%	37.4%	16.5%	1.7%
8.	Right to serve in the military	39.3%	30.0%	22.7%	8.0%
9.	Increased gay representation in govt.	34.0%	34.8%	28.1%	3.1%
10.	Increased integration within mainstream America	32.9%	35.1%	26.0%	6.1%
11.	Religious recognition of marriage	12.5%	10.6%	20.8%	56.1%

"In a similar poll we did earlier this year, the top three issues were the same, yet the order has changed," said Amy Falkner of Syracuse University, lead researcher on the project. "Legal recognition of same-sex marriage is now the top concern of potential gay voters. They are going to be looking at a candidate's stand on this issue with the most scrutiny.

 "Couple this with the fact that our research consistently shows that the GLBT community is more likely to be registered to vote than the national average, and you have a potentially powerful voting bloc," she added.

Q4: Compared to other issues, how important are issues involving GLBT rights to you in deciding whether and how to vote? 

In general, female respondents considered GLBT rights a more important issue. 

	Male	Female
Single most important issue	13.3%	17.9%
One of my top few considerations	49.7%	52.8%
Important, along with other issues	32.7%	27.0%
Only somewhat important as a consideration	3.0%	1.6%
Not that important a consideration	1.3%	.6%

Political party affiliation

Voter registration

             95% of respondents say they are registered to vote. This is a much higher percentage than those who say they are registered nationally. (This also corresponds to the percentages in the last three GLCensus surveys; in all previous surveys at least 90% said they were registered to vote). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 70% of the voting-age, citizen population was registered to vote in the 2000 presidential election. *

*Source: Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2000, available at

 http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p20-542.pdf

 Survey conducted: The survey was conducted online from February 20 through midnight February 23.

 Survey announced: The survey was announced through an e-mail invitation to individuals in the national GLCensus database. We maintain one of the largest databases of the GLBT community.

 Survey security: Respondents are allowed to take the survey only once. Respondents are screened through e-mail security measures to ensure this happens.

 Survey methodology: Please see our methodology statement at our web site at http://www.glcensus.com/downloads/Why_Online_Surveys.htm

 Survey base: The base for the entire survey is 2,058 respondents who self-identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. Respondents range in age from 18 to 74. The median age is 38. 49.5% of survey respondents have a household income of $59,999 or less; 50.5% have a household income of $60,000 or more

The GLCensus Partners is a partnership between the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and advertising and public relations firm OpusComm Group, Inc., which specializes in consultation of sensitivity issues and market plan development for all types of advertisers to target the GLBT community.

 For further information and to review a full summary of the February 2004 GLBT political poll, contact Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group at jeff@opuscommgroup.com (315) 637-2018 or visit www.glcensus.org.

 IMPORTANT NOTICE:  ALL INFORMATION IS TO BE ACCREDITED TO:

GLCensus Partner (www.glcensus.org) Study - A Syracuse University and OpusComm Group research partnership

GLCensus Partners (www.glcensus.org)- The world leader in GLBT consumer research, includes:  
- The S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University (www.syracuse.edu) - One of the world’s leading academic and research institutions in the field of communications.

-         OpusComm Group (www.opuscommgroup.com) - Innovative Advertising, Marketing, Communication, Research and Public Relations experts on the Gay/Lesbian market.