A significant minority of Republicans say they don't want more LGBTQ people in Congress, a new Insider/Morning Consult poll found.
About one out of three Republicans said they thought more LGBTQ people represented in Congress was a "bad thing," according to the poll.
"With representation, the only thing that stuck out to me is just the massive, massive gap about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing to elevate LGBTQ Americans between Democrats and Republicans," Morning Consult senior reporter Eli Yokley told Insider. "The share who say it's a bad thing, it's like a third of Republicans say it's a bad thing. That's a pretty big number on that kind of question."
Among Republicans, men were more likely than women to say LGBTQ representation in Congress was a "bad thing:" four in 10 Republican men voiced opposition compared to about three in 10 Republican women.
Meanwhile, only about one in 10 Democrats said LGBTQ representation in Congress was a "bad thing." Among Democrats, less than one in 10 women were opposed to more LGBTQ representation, the lowest percentage among all surveyed demographic groups after atheists and students.
On a broader scale, nearly one-in-five surveyed American adults said more LGBTQ Americans represented in Congress was a "bad thing," the highest among all groups, followed by members of Gen Z and millennials.
A record number of openly LGBTQ lawmakers may occupy the next session of Congress, as more people from queer communities are running for US Congress in 2022 than in any other election cycle in US history, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organization dedicated to electing openly LGBTQ people to government.
At least 101 LGBTQ people are running for a seat in the Senate or the House, which marks a more than 16% increase from 2020, when 87 people from queer communities ran.
The survey is part of Insider's "Red, White, and Gray" project, which explores the ongoing gerontocracy in the US and its ramifications for a younger generation.
The Insider/Morning Consult survey was conducted from September 8 through September 10 and had 2,210 respondents and a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.
