Is there really a gay voter backlash?

The Associated Press rounds up some anecdotal evidence of an angry and disenchanted gay voter base that might stay home instead of voting for Democrats next week. "This year's election is a stark contrast to 2008, when the gay community turned out in droves to elect Obama and help Democrats regain control of Congress," the AP says.

The story provides no data on the subject. It quotes a few activists in the gay community who say they see signs of "lethargy" and "disgust" among voters who were energized for Democrats just two years ago, but who are disappointed with the administration's lack of action on gay marriage and the military's ban on gay service.

Speculation like AP's highlights the overall lack of data on gay voters in America, who often have specific wishes as a political bloc but aren't polled in the same way that other demographic groups are. Most public opinion polls don't ask respondents about their sexual orientation.

Gallup spokesman Eric Nielsen said the organization's polls do not ask about sexual orientation because the gay community overlaps with larger demographic categories that Gallup does sort by--like age and race. "They're sort of collected in the broader demographics. We don't want to ... single them out in that sexual orientation demographic," Nielsen said.

Exit polls have been one of the only sources of information about how gay voters affect elections, says Ken Sherrill, a Hunter College professor who has used such data to conclude that gay people are overwhelmingly Democratic and tend to vote more than other demographics. Edison research, the company that conducts the exit polls, have not yet returned a request for comment about whether they will continue to ask about sexual orientation this year.

"If you don't ask about a population, then you make believe it doesn't exist," says Sherrill. "It's disempowering. Any state where the Democrats carry a race by 1 or 2 percent--that could be attributed to the gay vote. And they wouldn't know it. If the gay vote goes down by 25 percent compared to 2008, that could make the difference between victory and defeat for Democrats in a number of races."

Sherrill says he also expects gay voter turnout and financial contributions to drop this year, but like the AP, he has no data to back up that forecast.

(Photo of pro-gay-marriage protester in San Francisco in August: Getty)