Talk It OUT: LGBTQ Voices In A Queer Election Year

In our third episode, we begin a two-part look at the political landscape in the all-important swing state of Pennsylvania, the nation’s fifth largest. The Keystone State is part of the so-called Blue Wall that collapsed in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 race, but swung back to the Democrats in 2020, giving President Joe Biden an 80,000-vote margin of victory there. 

This year, Pennsylvania also hosts a US Senate race, with Democratic incumbent Bob Casey’s bid for a fourth term critical to overcoming the tough odds his party faces in holding onto the Senate majority.

In this episode, I’m joined by Adam Barbanel-Fried, director of Changing the Conversation Together, a group already working on the ground in Philadelphia, engaged in door-to-door conversations in neighborhoods where voter turnout falls markedly below the citywide average. 

I also talk to Lori Schreiber, an out lesbian who is the elected Clerk of Courts in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania’s third largest county, just to the northwest of Philadelphia. Lori, who is on the board of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Organization for Women, talks about how the traditionally high voter turnout in Montgomery County combined with a dramatic shift toward Democrats over the past decade has made it the Key to the Keystone.

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In the second episode of “Talk It OUT: LGBTQ Voices In A Queer Election Year,” Dr. Patrick Egan, a political science professor at New York University, talks about what polling may and may not tell us about what to expect in November — and explains that the polling industry still can’t fully account for why its results have been most unreliable when Donald Trump is on the ballot.

In this debut episode of Talk It OUT: LGBTQ Voices In A Queer Election Year, host Paul Schindler speaks with Brian Derrick, political strategist and founder of OATH.VOTE, an online resource for political donors to maximize the impact of their candidate contributions, and to Dave Fleischer, a former senior staffer at the LA LGBT Center who pioneered an approach to on-the-ground voter persuasion known as Deep Canvassing. This podcast is presented by Gay City News and gaycitynews.com. (Music courtesy of IMG via uppbeat.io.)

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“Talk It OUT: LGBTQ Voices In A Queer Election Year,” presented by New York’s Gay City News and gaycitynews.com, is a weekly podcast exploring the political organizing work of LGBTQ and allied groups in key 2024 swing states. Host Paul Schindler — who for more than two decades was Gay City News’ founding editor — speaks to activists on the ground in presidential battlegrounds as well as hard-fought US Senate contests and several House races pivotal to determining control of Congress next year. Guests discuss the most effective methods of voter registration and mobilization but also the hurdles they face in maximizing turnout. The podcast provides listeners with answers to questions about where their volunteer and campaign donations can have the greatest impact, what the most effective efforts are for them to support, and what opinion polling does and doesn’t tell them about what to expect in November. “Talk It OUT” provides a recipe for kicking time-wasting social media habits, rolling up your sleeves, and helping to make a difference.

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