Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator, has made history by becoming the first out transgender person elected to the US Congress.
McBride, a Democrat, defeated Republican John Whalen III to win the state’s only seat in the House of Representatives.
“Tonight is a testament to Delawareans that here in our state of neighbours, we judge candidates based on their ideas and not their identities,” McBride said at Delaware’s Democratic election night celebration on Tuesday night.
“Thank you, Delaware! Because of your votes and your values, I am proud to be your next member of Congress,” McBride also wrote on X.
“Delaware has sent the message loud and clear that we must be a country that protects reproductive freedom, that guarantees paid leave and affordable child care for all our families, that ensures that housing and healthcare are available to everyone and that this is a democracy that is big enough for all of us.”
The 34-year-old won 57.8 per cent of the vote against Whalen, a former Delaware state police officer and businessman, with 95 per cent of votes counted. The seat has been Democratic since 2010.
McBride also thanked her late husband, Andy Cray, who died of cancer a few days after their wedding in 2014.
“My time with Andy reinforced for me a simple truth, that hope as an emotion, hope as a phenomenon, only makes sense in the face of hardship,” she said. “While at this moment in America’s history, hope sometimes feels hard to come by, we must never forget that we are the beneficiaries of seemingly impossible change.”
McBride is no stranger to making history – in 2020, she became the first out trans person elected to a state senate seat, when she was elected to the Delaware senate. Before that, she became the first out trans woman to work in the White House when she interned with the Obama administration in 2012, according to her memoir.
A Delaware native, McBride has been politically engaged from a young age: by 18, she had volunteered for Beau Biden’s initial 2006 campaign for attorney general and his re-election campaign in 2010.
At the age of 21, McBride came out as trans in her university’s student paper at the end of her term as student body president, and in a viral post on Facebook.
McBride has embraced a number of progressive policy platforms, advocating for reproductive freedom, supporting a $15 federal minimum wage, expanding access to affordable healthcare, supporting “common-sense” gun reforms and working on anti-discrimination legislation in Delaware to protect trans people.
“I think that folks know that I am personally invested in equality as an LGBTQ person,” McBride said to CBS News. “But my priorities are going to be affordable childcare, paid family and medical leave, housing, healthcare, reproductive freedom.
“We know throughout history that the power of proximity has opened even the most closed of hearts and minds,” she continued. “And I still believe that the power of proximity taps what I believe to be the most fundamental human emotion, which is empathy.”
McBride’s victory comes at a time when Republican candidates, including Donald Trump, have ramped up their attacks on trans people. The GOP spent more than $200m (£154.8m) on network television adverts targeting trans people this year, according to data shared with NBC News by analytics company AdImpact. Since August, Republicans have spent $65m (£50m) on such ads in more than a dozen states, according to the New York Times.
Before her win, responding to questions about Mr Trump, McBride told CBS: “I wouldn’t be the first person in Congress to be part of a community that Donald Trump has said outrageous things about.”
