LGBTQ candidates perform well around the U.S.

Tina Kotek, left, and Maura Healey

‘Lavendar ceilings’ shattered around the country Tuesday as at least 324 Victory Fund-endorsed candidates won elections

LISA KEEN | Keen News Service
lisakeen@mac.com

The LGBTQ Victory Fund had endorsed 416 openly LGBTQ candidates in midterm races — from federal to local — around the U.S., and as of 5 p.m. Central Time on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 324 of those candidates had declared victory. That number includes 20 winning candidates in Texas.

An early victory came in Massachusetts where Attorney General Maura Healey, a popular Democrat in a deeply blue state, coasted to victory as predicted, becoming the first lesbian to be elected governor of any state.

Another lesbian candidate for governor, Tina Kotek in Oregon, appeared to be in a position to be the second to do so.

But that race may end up in a runoff.

In a surprise upset, five-term U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney lost his seat in Congress, and a pro-Trump gay Republican appears to have defeated a gay Democrat for a U.S. House seat from New York.

Maura Healey
Maura Healey’s win in Massachusetts made her the first woman to win election as governor in that state and the first lesbian to win election as governor anywhere in the nation. (Bisexual Kate Brown was the first openly LGBTQ person to be elected governor when she won a special election bid in 2016; Jared Polis became the first gay man when he was elected governor of Colorado in 2018. He won re-election easily this year, raking in 62 percent of the vote.)

Healey, who helped lead the legal battle for marriage equality and championed many challenges against Trump administration policies, triumphed over a Trump-backed Republican. That Republican, Geoff Diehl, had Trump’s endorsement but not that of the state’s popular incumbent governor, Republican Charlie Baker.

Healey positioned herself to acknowledge Baker’s strengths.

In her acceptance speech, Healey delivered a message to “every little girl and young LGBTQ person out there. I hope tonight shows you that you can be whoever you want to be.”

Healey also promised to be a governor for everyone, whether they voted for her or not.

The Associated Press called the race for Healey just five minutes after the polls closed Tuesday night. Healey won 64 percent, to Trump-backed Jeff Diehl’s 35 percent.

Tina Kotek
In Oregon, where voters have for decades rejected Republican candidates for governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, former speaker of the state House, had to contend with a third party candidate who appeared to be drawing nine points from voters who, it is believed, would otherwise vote Democratic. As of Wednesday at 5 p.m., 68 percent of the vote counted, Kotek was ahead of Republican Christine Drazan, 46.2 percent to 44.3 percent, with Betsy Johnson, who had no party affiliation, claiming 8.8 percent, leaving Donice Smith of the Constitution Party with 0.4 percent and Libertarian Leon Noble with 0.3 percent.

Kotek told supporters that she is “optimistic” but it was “still too early” to declare victory.

U.S. House incumbents
LGBTQ candidates sought to double the number of openly LGBTQ members of the U.S. House this year. Going into Tuesday’s election, that count was eight. At deadline, it appeared the number in the new Congress, which begins Jan. 3, could be 11.

Eight of nine incumbent LGBTQ candidates in the U.S. House were running for re-election, and four had relatively easy runs for re-election: Mark Pocan (Wisconsin 2nd), Mark Takano (California 41st), David Cicilline (Rhode Island 1st) and first-termer Richie Torres (New York 15th).

One current openly gay member of the House, Mondaire Jones, was redistricted into another district this year and lost the primary. At deadline, three of the four incumbents with tough races appeared to have won, but Sean Patrick Maloney (New York-17th CD) appears to have lost his bid for reelection.

At deadline Wednesday evening, with 95 percent of the vote reported, Maloney was trailing in his hotly contested race for a sixth term in the U.S. House, 49.4 to 50.6, to Republican Michael Lawler. Because of redistricting, Maloney had to choose whether to run in District 18, his original district, or District 17, where his home is located under the new map.

The complication: District 17 was the district being represented by Mondaire Jones.

Much to Jones’ chagrin, Maloney chose District 17 and soon found himself in a toss-up race against Lawler, a state assemblyman. Maloney closed a 10-point deficit Tuesday night to a 1.2 deficit as of Wednesday evening.

Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional district race is always a nailbiter, including this year as two-term Democrat Angie Craig faced the same Republican opponent she beat by only two points last time. The lead Tuesday night kept changing, but by Wednesday evening, with 99 percent of the vote in, Craig appeared to hang on to her seat for a second term by a five-point margin.

In the strangest of twists, just like during the 2020 race, a third party candidate’s name was also on the ballot, even though that person is dead. In 2020, the dead candidate won 6 percent of the vote (voters are not alerted if a listed candidate is deceased); this year, the dead candidate won 3.3 percent.

Democrat Chris Pappas, New Hampshire’s first openly gay member of Congress, has won a third term in a congressional district that has been split evenly among Democrats, Republicans and non-affiliated voters. After winning his first term by 8.6 points, he won his second term by 5.1 points.

With 97 percent of the vote counted as of Wednesday evening, Pappas was 8 points ahead of a candidate promoted by former President Trump, Karoline Leavitt, who spoke out against trans women athletes and self-accepted pronouns and said she would support Florida-like “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.

In Kansas 3rd congressional district, Democratic incumbent Sharice Davids was winning by a 12-point lead Wednesday evening, with 99 percent of the vote counted. Davids faced her 2020 challenger again, but this time in a more Republican-leaning district thanks to redistricting.

Pre-election polls suggested abortion might be a factor there, where Kansas voters in August overwhelmingly rejected an effort to give the state legislature power to ban all abortions in the state. Davids supports the right of women to obtain an abortion; her Republican opponent Amanda Adkins said she’s “pro-life” but thinks the issue should be decided at the state level, not by the federal government.

U.S. House challengers
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund supported eight of the nine openly LGBTQ candidates for Congress this year. As of Wednesday morning, five of the nine appeared victorious:

Democrat Becca Balint, president pro tem of the Vermont Senate, easily won her first bid for the state’s one U.S. House seat. According to Associated Press, Balint, a former middle school teacher, beat the Republican Party’s candidate Liam Madden, a former Marine, by 35 points.

At 5 p.m. Wednesday with 96 percent of the vote counted in Illinois’ 17th congressional district, Democrat Eric Sorensen was 4 points ahead of Republican Esther Joy King for the open seat in central-western Illinois. Sorensen is the first LGBTQ member of Congress from Illinois. In a victory speech Wednesday morning, Sorensen said he would “make sure we all have a seat at the table.” He also thanked his “wonderful partner Sean, for being a rock through all of this.”
In North Carolina’s 11th district, Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara fell by 10 points to a Republican state senator for an open seat vacated by a Democrat near the more progressive Asheville area. Beach-Ferrara, a county commissioner and ordained minister, was also an LGBTQ activist in the state.

Long Beach’s Democratic mayor, Robert Garcia, has been declared the winner in California’s 42nd congressional district with only 40 percent of the vote counted. As of Wednesday evening, Garcia had a 28-point lead, making him the first openly LGBTQ immigrant to win a seat to Congress, his family having immigrated to California from Peru when he was 5.

As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, with 31 percent of the vote reported in the Palm Springs-Coachella Valley area District 41, Democrat Will Rollins had a 13-point lead points over anti-gay Republican incumbent Ken Calvert, who has a zero score on LGBTQ votes in Congress. Rollins is a former prosecutor who has worked on cases against some of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. The newly drawn district is 50-50 Democrat-Republican.

Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner took a commanding lead as the vote tallies in Oregon’s 5th district were first released Tuesday night in her first bid for Congress. But with 69 percent of the vote counted Wednesday evening, the education, health and clean water activist was trailing four points behind her Republican opponent, Lori Chavez-DeRemer.

With 89 percent of the votes counted in Maryland’s 1st district Wednesday evening, pro-Trump Republican incumbent Andy Harris had a 23-point lead over Victory Fund-endorsed Democrat Heather Mizeur and had been declared the winner. Mizeur, a former state legislator, previously made a strong showing in a gubernatorial primary in Maryland. But District 1 is largely rural Eastern Shore territory and represented by the incumbent for 12 years now.

The U.S. House race to represent Queens and Long Island, N.Y., was the first to ever pit two openly gay candidates against each other in a Congressional general election. Wednesday evening, with 94 percent of the vote counted, pro-Trump gay Republican George Santos was 8 points ahead of Democrat Robert Zimmerman in the race for the open seat previously held by a Democrat.

Santos has acknowledged attending the Jan. 6 insurrection rally and has said he would defend marriage equality but does support a Florida-style “Don’t Say Gay” bill in Congress.

Zimmerman is a former aide to members of Congress and political commentator who had the support of the LGBTQ Victory Fund.

The Victory Fund said a record 678 openly LGBT candidates ran for office during these mid-term general elections.