Dating dealbreakers? Poll finds opposing views on trans rights and Trump top list

When it comes to dating, many Americans say they’d give the cold shoulder to someone with the wrong opinion on hot-button issues, according to new polling.

In a recent YouGov survey, large shares of respondents said they would not be willing to date someone who held opposing views from them on transgender rights, abortion and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

For other topics, most respondents said they’d be willing to agree to disagree, including for health care and taxes.

Here is a breakdown of the results.

Dating deal-breakers

The poll — conducted with 1,109 U.S. adults March 27-30 — asked respondents how willing they would be to date someone with different views on 15 contentious topics.

Nearly half, 44%, said they would be “not at all willing” to date someone who had diverging views from them on transgender rights, making it the No. 1 deal-breaker.

Similarly, 43% said they wouldn’t consider dating an individual with opposing views on President Donald Trump, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of about 4 percentage points.

Following this, 39% said the same about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack; and 37% said the same about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), as well as abortion and gender roles.

Among the topics that fell in the middle were gun control (30%), vaccines (29%), immigration (26%), and religion and climate change (25%).

In contrast, just 10% of respondents said they would be “not at all willing” to date someone with different views from them on taxes, making it the topic that the smallest share considered a deal-breaker. Similarly, 11% said the same on economic issues and 16% said the same on health care.

Partisan, gender breakdown

On most topics, Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say they wouldn’t consider dating someone with opposing views.

For example, 68% of Democrats said they would “not at all be willing” to date an individual with opposing views on Trump. Meanwhile, 24% of GOP respondents said the same.

Similarly, 44% of Democrats said they wouldn’t think about dating someone with different views from their own on vaccines, while 18% of Republicans said the same.

However, there were four topics that were bigger deal-breakers for Republicans: transgender rights, gender roles, religion and the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The largest gap was on transgender rights, with 53% of Republicans saying they wouldn’t date someone with opposing views and 42% of Democrats saying the same.

There were also some noticeable differences in responses between men and women.

For example, 51% of women said they would “not at all be willing” to date someone with opposing views on Trump, while 34% of men said the same.

Likewise, 44% of women said they would not consider dating someone with a different view from their own on abortion, while just 29% of men said the same.

This story was originally published April 15, 2025 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Dating dealbreakers? Poll finds opposing views on trans rights and Trump top list."