- A similar share of Trump voters want to live in a place that has laws allowing discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools and laws ensuring equality based on gender or sexual orientation.
- Over half of Trump voters say they don’t want to live somewhere with easy access to mail-in-voting.
- Biden voters feel particularly strongly about living in a place where gender affirming care is legal, while Trump voters feel strongly about living in a place without firm gun control laws.
Nearly one of every five (17.6%) U.S. homeowners and renters who plan to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election want to live in a place where abortion is legal.
That’s according to a Redfin-commissioned survey conducted by Qualtrics in February 2024. The nationally representative survey was fielded to 2,995 U.S. homeowners and renters, of whom 1,162 said they plan to vote for Donald Trump and 1,171 said they plan to vote for Joe Biden. We refer to these respondents as “Trump voters” and Biden voters” throughout this report. Respondents were asked to rate their willingness to live in places with a range of characteristics.
The majority of Trump voters either don’t want to live in a place where abortion is legal (34.6%) or are indifferent (47.9%).
More than half (58.4%) of respondents who plan to vote for Joe Biden in the upcoming election want to live somewhere abortion is legal, while 8.9% don’t want to and 32.7% are indifferent. When it came to respondents as a whole—which includes people who said they don’t plan to vote for either Biden or Trump—36.5% want to live somewhere abortion is legal, 21.5% don’t want to, and 42% are indifferent.
Roughly 1 in 4 Trump Voters Want to Live Somewhere With Racial Diversity, Laws Ensuring Equality Based on Sexual Orientation
Over one-quarter of Trump voters (28.7%) want to live in a place where gender affirming care for children is fully legal, and just under one-quarter (24.3%) want to live somewhere with laws ensuring equality based on gender or sexual orientation. A similar share (25.8%) want to live somewhere with racial diversity, while 20% want to live in a place with laws allowing discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools.
Biden voters were much more likely to say they want to live in places with these characteristics.
Biden Voters Feel Strongly About Gender Affirming Care, Trump Voters Feel Strongly About Guns and Mail-In-Voting
Nearly three-quarters of Biden voters (71.5%) want to live in a place where gender affirming care for children is fully legal—making it the top “want to” answer choice among Biden voters. Next came living in a place that has racial diversity (59.6%), is a “sanctuary city” for migrants (59.2%) and has legal abortion (58.4%).
Trump voters felt most strongly about gun control. Nearly two-thirds (64%) don’t want to live in a place with strong gun control laws. More than half don’t want to live in a place where recreational weed is legal (53%) and 52.3% don’t want to live somewhere that has easy access to vote-by-mail.
Summary: Survey Results
| Rate your willingness to live in a place… | Likely Trump Voters | Likely Biden Voters | Overall | |
| Where abortion is legal | I want to | 18% | 58% | 37% |
| I don’t want to | 35% | 9% | 22% | |
| With strong gun control laws | I want to | 12% | 36% | 22% |
| I don’t want to | 64% | 20% | 42% | |
| That has laws ensuring equality based on gender or sexual orientation | I want to | 24% | 58% | 39% |
| I don’t want to | 15% | 6% | 10% | |
| Where gender affirming care for children is fully legal | I want to | 29% | 72% | 48% |
| I don’t want to | 35% | 6% | 20% | |
| That has laws allowing discussion of LGBTQ topics in schools | I want to | 20% | 57% | 37% |
| I don’t want to | 29% | 8% | 18% | |
| With easy access to vote-by-mail | I want to | 13% | 45% | 26% |
| I don’t want to | 52% | 11% | 31% | |
| Where recreational cannabis/marijuana is fully legal | I want to | 12% | 47% | 26% |
| I don’t want to | 53% | 12% | 32% | |
| Where there is racial diversity | I want to | 26% | 60% | 41% |
| I don’t want to | 21% | 5% | 12% | |
| Where there is socioeconomic diversity | I want to | 29% | 42% | 34% |
| I don’t want to | 32% | 18% | 26% | |
| That is a “sanctuary city” welcome to housing migrants | I want to | 23% | 59% | 41% |
| I don’t want to | 23% | 9% | 16% | |
Methodology
This report focuses on the following survey question: “Please read the following list and indicate how willing you would be to live in a place…” Respondents were asked about various situations and were given the following answer options: “I would only live in a place like this”; “I prefer to live in a place like this”; “I prefer not to live in a place like this”; “I would not live in a place like this” and “has no impact on where I would live.” Throughout this report, we refer to the first two answer choices as “I want to” and the second two answer choices as “I don’t want to.”
Of the 2,995 respondents surveyed, 38.8% indicated that they expect to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, while 39.1% indicated that they expect to vote for Biden and 22.1% indicated that they don’t plan to vote for either candidate.
United States
Canada