Poll: LGBT Community Kept Faith in Obama

A poll shows that President Barack Obama held a higher job approval rating among the LGBT people than the public at large last fall even before “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal was passed and signed into law.

The Huffington Post reports that it obtained the Democratic poll, which had not been previously published, from a “high-ranking LGBT operative” interested in showing that LGBT Americans would no lose patience with President Obama in the years ahead, when the Republican-controlled House is likely to stall progress on major legislative items.

“In an October survey conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, 64 percent of self-described LGBT community members said they approved or strongly approved of the way Obama was handling his job,” reports HuffPo. “While only 30 percent of all likely voters said the country was headed in the right direction (62 percent said the opposite), 46 percent of LGBT respondents answered ‘right direction’ (49 percent said ‘wrong direction’).”

The survey polled 1,077 self-identified LGBT people, half by phone and half online. However, only 5% of respondents described their issues as the most important facing the country. Some 58% cited the economy as their priority.