Swipe left if you voted for Trump. Swipe right only if you support the right to an abortion.
Politics has seeped into the dating world. People’s votes are now litmus tests for whether they are a good match. It’s a stark reality of dating in a deeply divided era.
Since the 2016 presidential election, even deeper lines have been drawn over a woman’s right to control her own body, race, LGBTQ+ rights, treatment of undocumented people, income inequality and climate change. People perceive these issues as cutting straight to their basic beliefs and principles. And they are now using them to vet who they date at a time when fewer people are pairing up.
That is especially true for people who are under direct threat by President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration, such as undocumented people or the LGBTQ+ community.
This new dating reality comes at a time when Pew Research Center reported this year that 47% of adults under 30 are single.
A survey by the website InnerBody found that 60% of those polled said a partner with opposing political views was a deal breaker. Nearly 87% of Democrats are dating Democrats and 84% of Republicans are dating Republicans.
That's true for many San Diegans.
University City High School dance teacher Ashley Harbecke, 43, said the issues that matter to her — such as reproductive rights — are about personal autonomy and power, and therefore transcend politics.
“It's not so much whether you're Republican or you're Democrat,” she said. “To me it's what are your values and I feel like who you are voting for right now speaks leaps and bounds.”
The requirements make dating “really hard,” she said. Harbecke said her values mean so much to her that for a time, she even compromised on other traits, such as looks and whether the man fit into her friend group.
Josh Bell, 26, is an actor who also works at a production company. He is an Independent. He is open to dating someone who doesn’t perfectly match his political beliefs, but only if they don’t contradict his moral code.
“Like basic human rights, like freedom of speech and things of that nature,” Bell said. “Climate change, and how it's directly being affected with certain laws that are passed in the current day, and the current effects of mental health on society. I think all of this has a core belief that directly affects dating as well as the mindset that relates to the character of a person.”
InnerBody says only 5% of Democrats are dating Republicans. About 8% of Republicans are dating Democrats. That’s a reality Hally De Groot, 30, understands.
De Groot views life and the world through a political lens. She said dating someone who doesn't support the right to an abortion is a no-go and feels unsafe. She would even consider the political ideology of a prospective partner’s family in her dating decisions. She does not believe she has set too high a bar. In fact, she said women’s standards have been too low for decades.
“We should have been able to be more selective or pickier all along, and now we're dealing with the fallout of what it means to be in control of as many factors in your life, actually being in charge of your own life,” De Groot said.
Political ideology is not a romantic yardstick for Eddie Rosenfeld, a 27-year-old Republican who works in operations at a tech company. He said a potential mate’s political ideology is about as important to him as her favorite color. All he requires is that she be receptive to other ideas. He has dated both Democrats and Republicans.
“When I dated someone that was liberal, I had a much better relationship with them because they were just more open and understanding and not very judgmental, and the person that I dated who was a little bit further right, was a little bit more passionate about those views and to me that was more of a turn off,” Rosenfeld said.
Those who do date people from the other party tend to fight about politics, according to the InnerBody survey.
