Politics are playing a bigger role in millennial dating preferences

Whether you swipe left or right might depend on if you lean left or right.

February 14, 2019, 6:25 PM

Before asking someone to be their Valentine, millennials are asking, “Who did you vote for?”

Over the past several years, millennials have increasingly indicated on their dating app profiles that politics is make-or-break in relationships, said Melissa Hobley, chief marketing officer for the dating app OKCupid, on ABC News' "The Briefing Room."

Hobley said that some people will filter their potential matches by political party, while others are only interested in people who vote in elections.

Fifty-six percent of millennial men and 73 percent of millennial women would prefer to date someone who votes for the same party as they do, according to OkCupid data.

“That’s really really powerful, again thinking about the previous generation, where the advice or the golden rule was don’t talk politics, wait to talk politics until you’re pretty far down the path. Millennials, more than any other demographic, are talking politics before they even match,” Hobley said.

OkCupid has seen this shift more rapidly since the 2016 presidential election. Hobley said she has noticed millennial women taking strong stances on the president and including photos of themselves at the Women’s March in their profiles.

“The stakes feel very high and what we've noticed [is], if you're a millennial, if you're in your 20s, you're going to use dating to show how you feel and to signal what matters to you,” Hobley said.

Watch the video above for the full segment.