Gay Rights A Low Priority Issue For Both Parties In 2010 Campaign

Nate Silver explains his chart:

I studied the campaign Web sites of Republican and Democratic candidates for the House in the 33 Congressional districts currently labeled toss-ups by The New York Times political desk. Although a few candidates did not highlight particular issues on their official Web pages, and a few others remain engaged in primaries where there is no clear favorite, we were able to examine the sites for 29 Republicans and 29 Democrats who are likely to be on the ballot in November. We then examined the subjects these candidates highlighted on the “issues” sections of their sites, dividing them into roughly 30 categories.

Silver notes that while the vast majority of candidates on both sides are avoiding gay rights issues in their campaigns, Democrats may be doing so because they are "hamstrung by Mr. Obama, who has taken a series of half-steps on the issue."