A trifle to cleanse the palate on the first slow-ish news day of the coronavirus era. My take on this survey begins with a reminder that men lean Republican (slightly) while women lean Democratic (strongly) and follows with the highly simplistic truism that men and women may prioritize … differently when assessing attractive qualities in a potential mate.

Not completely differently. But differently enough.

Tell a committed Democratic woman that a Trump voter’s into her and she might ask if he’s voting for Biden this time. Tell a committed Republican man that a Clinton voter’s into him and he’ll say, “Show me the photo.”

Righties don’t care. We get the left-wing viewpoint all day long from the news media and entertainment industry. Might as well get it at the dinner table and in the sack too.

There may be a class component, or at least a perceived class component, to this. Pew notes that 84 percent of Democrats with a bachelor’s degree said they wouldn’t date a Trump voter; among Democrats without a degree, that dropped to 67 percent. Two years ago Pew found that 58 percent of college graduates identified as Democrats or Democratic leaners, the highest share in 25 years, compared to 36 percent who identified as Republicans. In 2016 Hillary won college grads and postgrads while Trump won those with a high-school education or some college. Many Dems may see themselves as middle- or upper-class and not want to date among the working class, which is how Trump voters are commonly stereotyped.

Race is another factor, of course. Trump’s GOP is a party of mostly aging whites while the Democrats in 2020 are younger and rely heavily on black and Latino voters for their margins of victory. Whites broke for Trump by 20 points four years ago, nonwhites went for Hillary by 53(!). Pew found that nonwhite Dems were more likely than white Dems to say they wouldn’t date a Trump voter by a margin of 17 points. Traditional assumptions about racism might lead you to think members of the “white party” would be more reluctant to date members of the “nonwhite party” than vice versa but, as you can see up top, according to Pew it’s the opposite. Maybe that’s what happens when the face of the white party is Trump and the face of the nonwhite party is AOC.

There’s one quirk in the data I’m curious about, though. I understand why Democrats are much more likely to say they’d date a Republican than a Trump voter. Some Republicans lean centrist and share the Dems’ disdain for Trump. There’s something in common there. What about the Republicans who say they’d date a Democrat but not a Hillary voter, though? Whom do they imagine to be in *that* group? Because in my mind that’s the Bernie contingent, the DSA types for whom Clinton wasn’t nearly socialist enough.

Not a great match for righties, unless you’re looking for an “angry fights followed by make-up sex” dynamic.

Exit quotation from Pew: “[S]ingle-and-looking Democratic men are about twice as likely as single-and-looking Democratic women to say they wouldn’t get into a relationship with a Clinton voter (17% vs. 9%).” Does that mean nearly 20 percent of Berniebros don’t want to date mainstream Democrats?