HRC Statement on Donald Trump’s Win in South Carolina

WASHINGTON – Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, released the following statement regarding Donald Trump’s win in South Carolina tonight:

“Just this week, Donald Trump proudly said that he could be trusted to reverse nationwide marriage equality, and tonight he’s one step closer to the Republican nomination,” saidHuman Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin. “Donald Trump’s calculated efforts to use division, fear and bigotry to score political points are dangerous and have no place in our country in the year 2016. Hillary Clinton is the candidate we can count on to defeat Trump -- or whichever one of these backwards anti-LGBT candidates emerges as the Republican nominee.”

CBN’s David Brody reported this week how Donald Trump bragged that voters can “trust me” to reverse nationwide marriage equality, days after Trump said on Fox News Sundaythat, if elected, he would appoint justices who would reverse the landmark Supreme Court decision that led to marriage equality nationwide.

Nationally, polling by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for HRC has found that a 55 percent majority of voters are less likely to support a candidate for president who opposes allowing same-sex couples to marry.

The Human Rights Campaign has endorsed Hillary Clinton and sent staff to organize members and supporters in key early states including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada -- and South Carolina ahead of next Saturday's Democratic primary.

With 1.5 million members and supporters nationwide -- is planning an unprecedented organizational effort to register and mobilize the nation’s pro-equality majority and elect pro-LGBT candidates up and down the ballot. In 2016, HRC expects that the pro-equality vote will be larger, stronger, and more energized than at any point in history. Exit polls show that in 2012 at least six million LGB Americans voted in an election decided by less than five million votes.

Today, in key states like Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, the population of LGBT adults is greater than the average margin of victory in the last three presidential elections.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. HRC envisions a world where LGBT people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

Paid for by Human Rights Campaign PAC and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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