Overview:
After the 2024 election, everything appears to be more divided; add dating in Denver to the list of politically charged issues.
Since Donald Trump’s presidency, dating in Denver has taken on a more partisan edge. While the city is known for its liberal leanings, there is a quieter presence, including staunch Trump supporters, turning to the dating apps.
“These days, there’s a dating app for everything,” said Raquel Debono, marketing and communication director for the conservative dating app Date Right Stuff. “There’s a dating app for religion. There’s a dating app for having a dog. I would say that as a conservative dating app, we really try to showcase those values of conservatism and traditional family values: wanting to get married, wanting to have children.”
Date Right Stuff has a considerable following on social media. According to Debono, the application has accrued over 400,000 downloads and 70,000 matches overall. She also claims that 39 percent of the platform’s profiles in Denver are female.
The app differentiates itself not only for strictly valuing conservatism but also with its sometimes political prompts, such as “favorite liberal lie” or “thoughts on Jan. 6.” Some users in New York—Date Right Stuff’s origin—convene at an event called Make America Hot Again. Date Right Stuff plans to branch this event out to additional liberal cities to meet different demographics of conservatives. One such event hosted a celebration of President Trump’s 100th day in office.
“I’ve definitely seen a growth of young conservatives on the site [since the election],” Debono said. “I also think it’s because people are more open about who they voted for in this post-election, Trump world. We also saw a surge of downloads before the election, and I always call these the ‘political bandwagoners.’”
Former Trump administration staff members Daniel Huff and John McEntee co-founded the app. Debono said the idea emerged after Huff went on a date during Trump’s first term. When his date found out he worked in the White House, she reportedly walked out.
“Being conservative is a core value for a lot of people,” Debono said. “Much like religion is. We don’t have silly things on our app like saying whether you’re interested in men or women. On a conservative dating app, it’s also a ridiculous question to say, ‘Do you want to have kids?’”
Debono said that part of the app’s appeal lies in its contrast to more mainstream platforms that she believes push progressive values.
“There’s dating apps like Bumble where you have to check a box to affirm support for Black Lives Matter, and we just take away a lot of that nonsense, and we’d like to say we have normal people,” Debono said. “We’ve been growing in a lot more liberal cities. A lot of people are surprised by that: that there are closeted conservatives.”
Debono says that many people join the app because people put things like “No Trumpsters” on their profiles on other apps. As a result, conservatives felt alienated from those platforms and turned to alternative dating sites.
An attendee of a Pre-Dating Speed Dating event at Left Hand RiNo, who prefers anonymity, echoed that idea and said he would never date a conservative again and is searching for a partner with values counter to that. At the event he wore a sticker that read “Trump Sucks” and shared that he had a relationship with a conservative woman in Denver that didn’t fare well.
“She cared more about my facial hair than Trump’s wrongdoings,” the attendee said.
LUMA Matchmaking, an international matchmaking service, offers services in Denver and also affirms that this partisan divide exists. They approach this rift in politics by “peeling back the onion” and narrowing down blanket statements that some daters make about parties.
“We’ll dissect their dating history and maybe they’ll talk about not wanting to date conservatives because their ex owned a lot of guns, and we’ll ask, ‘Okay, what about a conservative that doesn’t own any guns?’ or ‘What about if they only hunt?’” said April Davis, the founder and president of LUMA. “You have to understand the nuances and layers.”
According to the Institute for Family Studies, in 2024, only 21 percent of marriages in the United States were politically different. Of those marriages, only nine percent are between Democrats and Republicans.
“If you’re dating someone who doesn’t vote the same as you, it becomes a problem,” Debono said. “At the end of the day, the more similarities you have with someone, the easier it is going to be to connect.”
While niche dating apps are trying to buffer this political friction, others are turning to a more curated approach like LUMA. Specifically, LUMA has seen this strain in Denver, too.
“Denver is a really transient city,” Davis said. “A lot of our clients aren’t originally from there, and they’re more outdoorsy than glam. You’re going to see people in Patagonia and North Face more than Gucci. So not everyone has strong roots, and that’s why many turn to matchmakers.”
LUMA’s clients go through multi-step consultations, including wardrobe styling, coaching and a deep dive into their dating history and values. Packages can cost up to $1,500.
“There’s a lot of people that will say, ‘I won’t date somebody that voted for Trump,’ which I’d say women share more often,” Davis said. “And we’ll see a lot of men that will say no one that’s super liberal.”
However, as these political preferences rise and influence personal connections, there is also a shift in the definition of conservatism itself.
“There is no one-size-fits-all; there are different types of conservatism,” Debono said. “It’s really not your mom and dad’s Republican party anymore.”
Date Right Stuff’s TikTok and other socials are rallying younger demographics, with over three million followers and nearly 200 million likes on TikTok alone. John McEntee tends to be the subject of the videos and has rhetoric like, “Now that Trump won, can we go back to calling them the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Indians?”
Date Right Stuff claims their approach to getting traction is a satirical play on both conservatives and liberals. “I think it’s really refreshing to have politics done in a very humorous way,” said Debono. “We believe it’s not that serious and it’s kind of funny; you can make a joke out of these things.”
Contrastingly, speed-daters Kyle Elsasser and Emilio Rossi take politics more seriously. When asked about the possibility of dating a Trump supporter at Left Hand RiNo, both Elsasser and Rossi shook their heads.
“I think that with MAGA supporters, it is a clear reflection of their morality and values as people; I don’t think they have humanity,” Elsasser said. “So I would never in good conscience date someone who voted for Trump.”
In today’s political climate, there are seemingly two pipelines emerging: one where politics is approached with staccato humor and satire, the other with moral and personal boundaries. The question remains whether these realities can mesh or if dating in Denver will further entrench the divide.
“It is become a lot more important to people,” Davis said of the role politics play in relationships. “We generally work with people in their 40s and 50s, but we see this trend in all of our clients … It’s really understanding the person instead of just taking blanket statements—you have to understand the nuances and the layers.”
