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US Democrat Sarah McBride won a state Senate race in Delaware and would become the first openly transgender state senator in the United States when she was sworn in.
McBride defeated Republican Steve Washington to win the seat left open after the retirement of the longest-serving legislator in Delaware state history.
Jason Minto / AP
Transgender activist Sarah McBride says: “I am well aware of the stark contrast between the president we could have (Biden) and the president we have now. … There has never been a moment in the fight for trans equality with so much potential and at the same time so much risk ”.
She won in a heavily Democratic district that stretches from north Wilmington to the Pennsylvania border, and joins several other transgender legislators across the country, but will be the first transgender state senator.
“I think tonight’s results demonstrate what I’ve known all my life, which is that the residents of this district are fair minded and are looking at the ideas of the candidates and not their identity,” McBride said Tuesday. night. “I am hopeful that an LGBTQ youth here in Delaware or anywhere in this country can see the results and know that our democracy is big enough for them too.”
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McBride interned at the White House under former US President Barack Obama and made history at the 2016 Democratic National Convention as the first openly transgender person to speak at a major party convention.
He succeeds fellow Democrat Harris McDowell, who held the Senate seat since 1976 and supported McBride’s candidacy.
McBride’s campaign generated interest and money across the country, generating more than $ 270,000 ($ 405,000) in donations in early October, dwarfing fundraising totals even for candidates for state office in Delaware.
A former president of the American University student body, McBride got his start in politics as a volunteer for Matt Denn, former legal adviser to the governor of Delaware, during his successful 2004 campaign for insurance commissioner. Denn, who later served as lieutenant governor and attorney general, worked with McBride’s father at a Wilmington law firm known for its close ties to the Democratic Party establishment.
McBride later worked on the campaigns of former Governor Jack Markell and former state attorney general Beau Biden.
McBride is one of several members of the LGBTQ community who were elected to the state legislature on Tuesday.
Social worker and newcomer to politics Marie Pinkney was also elected to the state Senate after ousting the acting president of the Senate, who was first elected to the General Assembly in 1978, in a Democratic primary in September. Pinkney identifies as queer and is the first openly queer woman elected to the legislature.
Similarly, Democrat Eric Morrison became the first openly gay man elected to the General Assembly on Tuesday after defeating an incumbent member of the House in the September primaries.
