Dante Bucci is a 22-year-old marketing student who lives in one of Washington’s most hip neighborhoods. The New Jersey native is clean cut, well dressed and well spoken.
However, as a Republican in one of the US’ most liberal cities, his political views are kryptonite in the US capital’s dating world, where he frequently finds himself attracted to Democrats.
“A lot of first dates. Not a lot of second dates,” Bucci said of his love life these days. “I think [US President] Donald Trump has a lot to do with that.”
In the 2016 US presidential election, Trump earned 4 percent of the vote in Washington. That is not exactly great math for a young, single and conservative man who backed the real estate mogul.
With tomorrow’s key midterm vote stoking political tensions, Republicans like Bucci are finding that romance is all but dead.
“They want to date someone that they can agree with on some issues,” said Bucci, who supports abortion rights and gay marriage, and calls himself a moderate Republican. “‘I’m a Republican, but...’ — I’ve started so many sentences that way.”
Enter DonaldDaters.com, a Web site connecting those who support the Republican president. Its slogan: “Make America Date Again,” of course.
“I felt a real need for this app,” said Emily Moreno, the 25-year-old Republican founder.
Many people in Washington said that if they mentioned working for Trump or Republican causes to a potential love match, “the date is shut down — it’s a deal-breaker,” Moreno told reporters.
Four days after launching the Web site toward the middle of last month, Moreno said that the app had been downloaded 20,000 times.
One senior adviser for a Republican member of the US Congress tried the app because he has found dating as a gay Trump supporter a particular challenge.
“The gay guys in DC are really closed-minded,” said the 31-year-old, speaking on condition of anonymity and calling himself “a minority within a minority within the minority.”
On other widely used dating apps like Tinder or Bumble, Bucci said he found nothing but landmines.
According to a sample of several dozen Tinder profiles consulted by reporters, many women urged Republicans guys to “swipe left” — meaning to pass them by.
Kendall, 23, is one of those women, whose Tinder profile states: “Allergic to bees and Republicans.”
“They don’t respect my autonomy. They don’t respect women. They voted for a person who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women so no,” said when asked why she was ruling out the men of the Republican Party.
Bucci said that many of his first dates go off the rails with the first question: “Did you vote for Donald Trump?” When he says yes, he gets all kinds of responses, not all of them pleasant, he added.
“Sometimes they probe me into why I voted Trump, as if it’s a murder and I’m on trial,” he said, adding that his friends are having similar experiences. “It really is tiring.”
As a result of the difficult dating scene, Bucci — who works for a high-profile conservative organization while pursuing his studies — is considering leaving Washington for good.
He said his lackluster love life is about 20 percent of his reason for wanting to go.
“This is not a normal city,” he said. “You can’t even go for a drink without talking about the Supreme Court or the deficit.”
“We are in a society where you can only date or be with people that think like you,” he said.
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