Americans would rather have a gay president than an atheist president
A poll has revealed the personal attributes that would make Americans more or less likely to vote for a candidate.
Gallup asked voters “Between now and the 2016 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates – their education, age, religion, race and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be – would you vote for that person?”
The most popular category was Catholic, with 93% – which is good news for Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
Women, black, Hispanic and Jewish potential candidates all had above 90% support, which may be credit to the popularity of figures like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Gay or lesbian candidates scored 74% – just above Evangelical Christians, with 74%, but below Mormons with 81%.
The least popular category was socialist with less than half of voters saying they’d vote for a socialist candidate. This mean Bernie Saunders – an independent, but potential Democrat rival for Hillary Clinton – may face an uphill battle.
He recently described himself as “philosophically… a democratic socialist”. Only 59% of Democrat voters would consider a socialist candidate.
Other less popular categories were Muslim, with 60% and atheist, with 58%.
Republican potential candidate Jeb Bush once described himself as Hispanic on a voter registration form, despite not being so.
