In liberal Washington, dating options leave conservatives with much to desire

WASHINGTON – 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. But as a Republican in one of the most liberal cities in America, his political views are kryptonite in the U.S. capital's dating world -- where he frequently finds himself attracted to Democrats. Not a lot of second dates," Bucci says of his love life these days. "I think Donald Trump has a lot to do with that." In the 2016 presidential election, Trump earned … 4 percent of the vote in the District of Columbia. It's not exactly great math for a young, single conservative man who backed the real estate mogul. And with the key midterm vote having stoked political tensions, Republicans like Bucci have found that romance is all but dead. "They want to date someone that they can agree with on some issues," laments 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." "Make America Date Again," of course. "I felt a real need for this app," said Emily Moreno, a 25-year-old Republican who founded the site after speaking to many of her friends. Moreno said that many people in Washington say if they mention working for Trump or Republican causes to potential love matches, "the date is shut down -- it's a deal-breaker." Four days after launching the site in mid-October, Moreno said the app had been downloaded 20,000 times. One senior adviser for a Republican member of Congress tried the app because he has found dating as a gay Trump supporter a particular challenge. "The gay guys in DC are really close-minded," said the 31-year-old who wished to remain anonymous, calling himself "a minority within a minority within the minority." He noted that the dislike goes both ways. "If someone was super into Hillary Clinton, I would be turned off by that," he explained. On other widely used dating apps like Tinder or Bumble, Bucci said he found nothing but land mines. According to a sample of several dozen Tinder profiles, many women urged Republicans guys to swipe left -- meaning to pass them by. Kendall, 23, is one of those women. "Allergic to bees and Republicans" reads the bio on her Tinder profile. They voted for a person who openly bragged about sexually assaulting women so no," she said when asked why she was ruling out the men of the GOP.