According to the Center for American Progress and Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research, 55 percent of likely voters favor getting rid of the prohibition on openly gay military servicemembers. And that support cuts across most political demographics:
Among likely voters, 68 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of independents, and 41 percent of Republicans support repeal. What’s more, 56 percent of voters in House of Representatives battleground districts and 56 percent in Senate battleground states support repeal.
That support doesn’t diminish even if the military opposes the repeal. But that may be a non-issue. McClatchy reported yesterday that Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and an opponent of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” has yet to encounter any resistance from the troops to getting rid of the ban.
(Full disclosure: In 2008, I was very briefly a CAP employee.)