The new dating app TruuBlue bills itself as the “first and only” online matchmaker catering to social justice progressives, seeking to duplicate the success of a conservative rival.
With more singles saying they would never woo someone on the other side of the ideological fence, TruuBlue aims to ride a wave of daters who see opposing politics as a “deal breaker” — a trend that suggests widening rifts between relationship seekers in red and blue states.
TruuBlue, based in Colorado, has set its sights on self-identified liberals of all persuasions seeking serious relationships based on mutual support for abortion rights, climate change activism and other issues.
Boulder tech entrepreneur Dennis Hefter, who launched the preliminary enrollment period for TruuBlue this month with $500,000 from private investors, says “the issues” make his platform different.
“I don’t think you need to be a Democrat to be on TruuBlue, but you need to be a progressive,” Mr. Hefter, 61, told The Washington Times. “We support all genders, sexualities and gender pronouns.”
Meanwhile, The Right Stuff app has marketed itself over the past year to conservatives who value God, heterosexual marriage, family and children.
Launched in September 2022, The Right Stuff has had more than 150,000 downloads and is averaging 43,000 monthly active users, said John McEntee, the app’s co-founder and a former presidential aide to Donald Trump. He said 51% of active users are women.
“Conservative daters are looking to date with intention,” Mr. McEntee told The Times. “We have six couples [that we know of] getting married from the app, with the first wedding being this month.”
The right-leaning app caters to “ladies” and “gentlemen” who use their biological pronouns.
Despite their differences, Mr. McEntee and Mr. Hefter share the hope that more young Americans will seek out niche dating apps as political polarization intensifies.
Mr. Hefter started developing TruuBlue in 2021, but he said the rapid success of The Right Stuff has given him hope that he can do even better.
He said The Right Stuff had 7,000 downloads on its first day last year, 6,000 on the second day and 33,000 in the first month.
“We’re excited by their numbers because it’s substantially higher than what we expected for a conservative app,” Mr. Hefter said.
“I think we’re going to get a ton of progressive college kids,” he added. “They’ll come here because they’re fervent about their beliefs and don’t want to waste time dating people who don’t share their values.”
Once it hits 5,000 downloads, TruuBlue will start matching users next month based on their political positions and ranked preferences for six social justice causes: climate change, gun control, abortion, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigration laws and universal health care.
Sub-questions within each issue seek more specific answers, including whether users support broader LGBTQ rights and looser immigration laws.
The competing apps come as a growing body of research shows online romantic preferences growing more specialized and young people becoming less interested in people with different values.
The American Perspectives Survey reported in February that political affiliation has become the fourth-highest dating priority after children, smoking, and religion.
That finding builds on several earlier surveys:
⦁ The American Family Survey from BYU/Deseret News found that just 21% of marriages were politically mixed in 2020. Only 3.6% were between Democrats and Republicans, Wendy Wang reported in an analysis for the Institute of Family Studies.
⦁ The Pew Research Center reported in 2020 that 71% of single Democrats said they probably or definitely would not be in a serious relationship with a Trump voter.
⦁ Pew reported that the perceived importance of political affiliations in dating profiles rose from 40% of current or recent online daters in 2019 to 53% in 2022, led by a surge of 16 percentage points among Democrats.
And online dating activity has exploded since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the marketing data website Statista, 44.2 million Americans used online dating services in 2020, and 53.3 million will use them by 2025.
The Right Stuff and TruuBlue are the latest in a growing list of niche dating apps. Others include Catholic Match, Christian Singles, Silver Singles, Elite Singles, JDate, Black People Meet and the LGBTQ app Alpha.
But political dating apps aren’t universally hailed as a positive development. Amber Brooks, editor of Florida-based DatingNews.com, said political dating apps “tend to lack staying power” because the smaller audience worsens the odds of meeting someone.
She pointed to the examples of BernieSingles and TrumpSingles, two apps that floundered in recent years.
“The idea of a conservative dating app or a liberal dating app may sound appealing to a single person with strong partisan viewpoints, but the actual experience is almost always disappointing,” Ms. Brooks told The Times. “Unless you live in a big city, you’re not likely to meet local matches on a niche app, and many profiles wind up being inactive.”
General dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble and Match.com already filter users based on politics and religion, making niche apps unnecessary, she added.
What’s more, political dating apps could have the unintended consequence of deepening social divisions, said Karene A. Putney, a business consultant at Maryland-based Etiquette Etiquette and a 2019 graduate of the Protocol School in the District of Columbia.
“We should be careful that these apps don’t make us feel more divided,” Ms. Putney said in an email. “Treating others respectfully, being polite, and talking openly are still important, just like in real life.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.