Who are sex workers voting for president?
More sex workers are supporting Kamala Harris in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, new data shows.
Nearly three out of four (74 percent) said they will vote for Harris in a poll of over 200 sex workers conducted by research firm SWR Data in the last week. Just above nine percent will vote for Trump, and the same amount are undecided. More than 7 percent will vote for someone other than Harris or Trump. One person said they definitely won't vote.
While the sample size is small, it's a subgroup within the estimated two million adult creators in the U.S., according to a press release shared with Mashable.
Porn performers working on studio sets are the strongest Harris supporters, with 81 percent voting for the candidate. Considering that Project 2025 — the right-wing policy wishlist for Trump if he wins — includes outlawing porn, it makes sense that performers want his opponent to win. Harris support is also strong among strippers, with 78 percent of those polled voting for her.
Trump, meanwhile, has the strongest support among webcam models (11 percent) and phone sex operators (11 percent). But all Trump supporters polled said they're extremely certain in their choice of candidate, while only 80 percent of Harris voters are extremely certain. Last month, Mashable reported that some sex workers are uncertain about voting for Harris considering her past actions. These included co-sponsoring the bill SESTA while a senator (a law that, along with FOSTA, were anti-sex-trafficking in theory, but in practice, researchers say hurt sex workers) and helping shut down Backpage.com, which sex workers say made them less safe.
Despite the hesitation to vote for her, Harris supporters speak about politics with their fans more often than Trump voters do: 20 percent of Harris voters do so "very often," contrasted with six percent of Trump voters. Thirty-seven percent of Harris voters speak about politics "occasionally," while only 19 percent of Trump supporters do. Half of Trump-voting creators never speak about politics with fans, and only 18 percent of Harris voters never do.
"With censorship and bodily autonomy on the ballot, the stakes could not be higher," MelRose Michaels, adult performer and co-founder of SWR Data, commented on the press release. "We're seeing a highly political, highly engaged sex worker population embrace its voice and flex its muscle. While there’s certainly still significant concern in the community over Harris' role in passing FOSTA, there's clearly much much greater concern about the possibility of a second Trump administration and the potential repercussions of Project 2025-like theocracy."