YouGov today released it's third wave of polls (warning: PDF) for this year's Senate and Gubernatorial races. However, whilst the horse race questions will no doubt dominate the headlines, I thought it would be worth checking in on the state of gay marriage across the US, since gay marriage seems to generate far less opposition these days, especially as the GOP has tried to rein itself in on social issues. It's also very rare that we have polls with a state-by-state breakdown of support commissioned at the same time.
Read on to see what findings were in the data...
After putting a graphic together for the gay marriage polling from YouGov, I took a look at some of the key results:
1) Only 18 states polled had more residents oppose gay marriage than support it.
2) Surprisingly some very red, but Midwestern, states like KS, MT, ND and SD (just about) all have net positive support for gay marriage.
3) Evidence shows again that AK is more of a Libertarian red state than a conventional red state, coming in at +14 for gay marriage, which is above the median support by state.
4) The median support for legalising gay marriage is +8, with Michigan coming in as the median state.
5) The mean support for legalising gay marriage across the US is +9.
6) The most supportive state for gay marriage is Massachusetts (+52), whilst the least supportive is Alabama (-32).
7) The state with the highest level of support for legalising gay marriage, yet doesn't currently have legalised gay marriage is Nevada at +24.
8) The state with the lowest level of support for legalising gay marriage, yet does currently have gay marriage is Pennsylvania at +11.
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Compiled results are listed below. The headers for each column are: State/ Support Legalising Gay Marriage/ Oppose Legalising Gay Marriage/ Net Support.
MA 71 19 +52
VT 71 20 +51
RI 68 20 +48
NH 63 24 +39
CT 61 26 +35
NY 61 27 +34
HI 59 26 +33
CA 58 31 +27
ME 63 37 +26
NM 57 32 +25
WA 57 32 +25
NV 55 31 +24
DE 54 31 +23
NJ 54 32 +22
OR 56 35 +21
IA 53 33 +20
IL 53 33 +20
CO 54 35 +19
MN 52 34 +18
AK 50 36 +14
WI 51 37 +14
MD 48 36 +12
PA 49 38 +11
ND 48 39 +9
MI 47 39 +8
AZ 47 40 +7
VA 47 40 +7
FL 46 40 +6
OH 45 40 +5
MT 45 41 +4
KS 44 41 +3
SD 43 43 0
IN 43 45 -2
NC 42 46 -4
MO 41 47 -6
NE 40 46 -6
LA 39 46 -7
WV 39 48 -9
GA 37 47 -10
SC 37 47 -10
KY 38 50 -12
TX 37 50 -13
OK 37 51 -14
WY 33 50 -17
ID 33 51 -18
AR 32 54 -22
UT 34 56 -22
MS 29 56 -27
TN 29 58 -29
AL 28 60 -32
US 48 39 +9