Quotes of the Day

The Pew Research Center released some fascinating new findings Thursday on voter opinions about the 2012 field. (Short take: they're not terribly psyched). I'll have more to say later on the question of whether voters are willing to vote for a Mormon. But data on two other candidate traits jumped off the page as I flipped through the report.

The first is whether voters would be more or less likely to vote for a candidate who had conducted an extramarital affair. Four years ago, a majority of voters (56%) said a candidate's adulterous past wouldn't matter to them — 39% said it would make them less likely to support a candidate. Now that number has risen to 46% of voters who would find it harder to support a candidate with an affair in his or her past, and only 49% say they wouldn't care.

In 2008, you may remember, the GOP field had more than a few divorced candidates, and at least two — McCain and Giuliani — who had carried on with their current wives while still married to the previous ones. This time around, Newt Gingrich is the only contender with a known sordid past (at least, as long as Donald Trump stays out of the race), and voters are less forgiving. Among Republican voters, 57% say an affair makes a candidate less appealing.

At the same time, voters are more willing to consider supporting a gay candidate. Only 33% of voters today say they would be less likely to consider a gay presidential candidate because of his or her sexual orientation. That's a dramatic shift from 2007, when nearly a majority (46%) of voters said a gay candidate would be less likely to get their support. Even among GOP voters, the percentage who say they couldn't support a gay candidate has dropped by 12 points (from 64% in 2007 to 52% now).

Yes, you're reading those numbers correctly. Republican voters say they'd be less likely to vote for a candidate with an affair in his past (57%) than a candidate who was gay (52%). Now, obviously, there's no openly gay candidate running for the Republican nomination. But there is Newt Gingrich, who is known for (in no particular order): leading the 1994 Republican Revolution, cheating on his first wife before divorcing her, and cheating on his second wife with his now-third wife. I'm not saying that means Gingrich has no chance. But is it simply a coincidence that he just let the world know that his ringtone is ABBA?

• Amy Sullivan
• The Pew Research Center released some fascinating new findings Thursday on voter opinions about the 2012 field. (Short take: they’re not terribly psyched).