National
Pelosi wants ‘Don’t Ask’ vote this year
Announcement comes as activists plan Sunday protest at White House
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to hold a House vote this year on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ (DC Agenda photo by Michael Key)
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is planning to hold a vote this year on repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” according to her office.
“It is the Speaker’s intention that a vote will be taken this year on [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] in the House,” Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesperson, told the Washington Blade in a statement this week.
The announcement is welcome news for repeal advocates because Pelosi has yet to send legislation to the floor that lacked sufficient support for passage.
Michael Cole, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, praised Pelosi for planning the vote.
“As we’ve been saying for a long time now, the time to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law is this year, and it’s a positive sign to hear congressional leaders affirm that,” Cole said.
Still, he noted that further work is necessary to make repeal happen.
“We need pressure on the Congress, we need pressure on the White House, we need pressure across the board, and as we get into this critical period, signs like that are promising,” he said.
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he learned last week in a meeting with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer that the House was planning the vote.
“I’m delighted that [Pelosi] reaffirmed to hold the vote this year,” he said.
Sarvis said the planned vote is helpful because it “underscores to the White House the seriousness of purpose” and the importance of moving key votes in the House and Senate during upcoming weeks.
“The hour for the president as well as for the leadership to become engaged is now,” he said. “The reality is — particularly in the Senate Armed Services Committee — we are still short of some critical votes. We don’t have the votes today. We’re on the brink of getting them, and we need help from leadership on the Hill and from the president himself.”
As plans for the House vote emerged, pressure continued to build on President Obama to make a greater effort to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” this year. Activists were planning a White House protest Sunday to draw more attention to the issue.
Heading the event are the grassroots groups Queer Rising and GetEqual. The latter organization was responsible for civil disobedience protests in recent months, including arrests on two occasions of LGBT former service members who chained themselves to the White House gates in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Alan Bounville, a member of Queer Rising and East Coast organizer for GetEqual, said the focus of Sunday’s protest would be to press Obama to send to Congress language repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as part of his budget recommendations for the defense authorization bill.
“We want the president to transmit to the Senate Armed Services Committee the language that’s put into the [Department of Defense] budget to repeal this ridiculous law immediately,” he said. “We want that to happen right now; we want him to do that this moment.”
Activists are urging Obama to send such language to Congress soon because the defense committees are expected to hold markups next month for defense authorization legislation. The Senate Armed Services Committee, which advocates have been pushing to take up the issue of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is scheduled to hold its markup on May 26.
“So [the protest is] really just part of the growing swell of grassroots pressure that’s being placed on the president to take leadership on this issue because we know this window is closing for this to happen this year,” Bounville said.
The protest is set to take place Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. at Lafayette Park. Bounville noted that the number of people who participate could be in the hundreds or more. Organizers are still working on the messaging for the protest, Bounville said, including what he called a “visual component” that “may or may not happen that would also provide a stark visual image at the actual rally.”
The list of speakers planning to take part in the protest is still being finalized, but Bounville said among those taking part would be U.S. Army Lt. Dan Choi, an Iraq war veteran who was among those who chained himself to the White House fence in protest of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“There’s a list of speakers that are taking the stage and just really sharing their stories, repeating this demand over and over and over,” Bounville said. “We’ll be doing a lot of chanting and just really connecting the people not just to this issue, but also to the fact we’re really fighting for full federal equality.”
Bounville was non-committal about whether civil disobedience would be a component of Sunday’s protest. He said he had “no idea” whether anyone would break the law at the event.
“I have no idea and usually those types of things would be kept under wraps anyway,” he said. “So that’s definitely something we wouldn’t know until we’re actually out there.”
But at least one lawmaker was skeptical about the impact of the Sunday protest. Gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), when asked about the effectiveness of the White House protest, replied, “You think President Obama is going to cave because people are demonstrating in front of the White House? No.”
“If presidents were going to change because people demonstrate, then what happens when people demonstrate in the opposite direction?” he said. “Do you count the number of demonstrators? I continue to be frustrated by people trying to take the easy way out — the way that gives them an emotional release — instead of calling senators and calling representatives.”
Frank said he was willing to bet most of those participating in the protest have not lobbied their lawmakers “in a significant way.”
“By which, I mean, call them and getting other people to call them,” he said.
In response, Bounville said Frank and others shouldn’t disparage acts of civil disobedience because people are putting themselves on the line for these efforts.
“That’s disgusting,” he said. “When they say things that really condemn non-violent direct action, they’re completely out of touch, not just with this movement, but with the social movement in general.”
Bounville said he didn’t think “letter writing and phone calling and $2,500 a plate dinners” have influenced lawmakers to move toward repeal, and what’s working “is the groundswell of grassroots support.”
“So if there were any civil disobedience at this rally, if it’s well executed, I think that would be a wonderful thing for the movement,” he said.
While skeptical about the impact of Sunday’s protest, Frank said the White House isn’t being “supportive the way they should be” in moving forward with repeal this year.
Still, Frank said the recent regulatory changes limiting third-party outings and raising the rank of officers conducting and initiating reviews “made a tremendous difference.”
“I give them a lot of credit for moving as they did, but I can’t give them full credit and I’m disappointed,” he said.
Bounville is also urging national LGBT organizations to take part in the Sunday protest and said a lack of participation would mean those groups aren’t serious about the urgency of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“If these organizations really feel a sense of urgency of these issues, they will support rallies like this that the community is planning,” he said. “It’s a rally that has competent speakers eloquently speaking on this issue, and if they’re not going to support that, then they’re really not supporting the movement, period.”
Bounville said SLDN and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force would be among the organizations “looking at what they can do right now to help promote this event,” but the situation with HRC is different.
“HRC has been to this point unresponsive, which is interesting because the other organizations have responded,” he said Monday. “Joe Solmonese and HRC have not responded, which is not surprising. He’s forcing HRC to become irrelevant very fast.”
Cole denied that HRC hadn’t responded to the organizers’ request to participate. He said HRC started talks Monday about getting Jarrod Chlapowksi, HRC’s military consultant, involved in the event.
“He is interested in doing so and HRC is interested in having him appear,” Cole said. “Right now, Jarrod is in direct communication with the event organizers to work out the details and find out more about the event, but we look forward to his participation.”
Sarvis said SLDN is supportive of the protest, but was waiting to hear more details. He said he had a meeting scheduled April 23 with Kip Williams, a co-chair of GetEqual, but the discussion didn’t take place because Williams left town before the scheduled time.
“We’re having conversations about what it’s going to look like and who’s participating and what’s the scope of the protest,” Sarvis said. “But, yes, it’s certainly something that we’re going to be supporting … and we’ll be helping to get out information on it and other means.”
Noting Obama called for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal as part of his State of the Union address, Sarvis said the challenge before repeal advocates is ensuring the president is following through and engaged with Congress to eliminate the statute this year.
“Clearly, if he gets on the phone and asks for votes in the two committees, that’s going to make a difference,” Sarvis said. “He’s working the phones on financial services reform. He did that on health care. We need that same kind of engagement in repealing that statute.”
Sarvis said protests such as the one occurring Sunday are effective in influencing President Obama to move forward with repeal this year, but noted that there are different approaches to petitioning the president.
“We have clients who are sending letters to the president this week individually; we’re up on Capitol Hill face-to-face with members and their staffs,” Sarvis said. “There’s a place for others to do their thing, whether it’s at the White House or Lafayette Park.”
Recalling a similar protest before the White House that SLDN organized in June to mark the then-265 service members who were discharged during Obama’s term, Sarvis said his organization has taken part in grassroots activism before.
“Petitioning the president at the White House is not a new thing for SLDN,” Sarvis said. “That’s something that SLDN organized almost 11 months ago, so obviously I think it’s helpful.”
In addition to the White House protest, Bounville noted that activists were planning actions targeting members of Congress regarding “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” He said his organization sent fliers to senators with differing positions on the issue — Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) — with the message, “You’re next!”
Accordingly, five activists held a sit-in protest Monday at McCain’s district office in Phoenix, Ariz., to protest the senator’s opposition to repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” The fallout of the protest wasn’t immediately clear and McCain’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“From a non-violent direct action standpoint, yeah, we have reached out to those targets,” Bounville said.
Still, Bounville said the No. 1 focal point for the upcoming protest is Obama because he’s failed to follow through on his promise to be a “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community.
“I’m going to continue to pressure him,” Bounville said. “I’m going to continue to exhaust myself because I’m not exhausted on this. He will continue to lose political capital at an accelerated rate, probably faster than he would have if we weren’t engaged at this end of the movement.”
National
Multi-billion-dollar 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to continue until 2090
Eligibility for same-sex partner survivors remains unclear
As part of its commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally operated program, released information during the past week showing it has awarded more than $18 billion to over 77,000 9/11 victims and their families since 2011.
Officials with what’s now referred to as the VCF point out that it was created to provide compensation to individuals or to a court-approved personal representative of a deceased individual who were present at one of the three sites where the hijacked jetliners crashed.
Among those supported under the program are thousands of rescue workers, clean-up crews, and residents living near the World Trade Center Twin Towers destruction site who became ill, many of whom later died, by being exposed to the toxic fumes created by the fire and falling debris.
“Twenty-five years since that day, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund has served tens of thousands of victims and their families, and we continue to receive over 750 new claims each month — a clear indication of the ongoing importance of our mission,” said Allison Turkel, VCF’s leader, who holds the title of Special Master.
In a Sept. 2 briefing for the news media in advance of the 9/11 anniversary commemoration, Turkel pointed out that the VCF operation was upgraded and expanded by separate laws passed by Congress in 2011 and 2019, with the 2019 law signed by President Trump providing full funding to “pay all eligible claims and extended the filing deadline to Oct. 1, 2090.”
LGBTQ advocacy organizations in New York and nationwide have reported that during the time shortly after the 9/11 attacks same-sex surviving partners of 9/11 victims learned they were ineligible for compensation benefits because their same-sex relationships were not legally recognized.
Nicole Nava, a VCF spokesperson, told the Washington Blade she would inquire into whether same-sex couple surviving partners were being supported under the VCF program in more recent years.
She said under long established VCF procedures, all applicants for benefit claims regarding a deceased person, whether same-sex or opposite sex, must be appointed as a Personal Representative of the deceased person by a state court. For D.C. residents, the probate division of the D.C. Superior Court appoints a Personal Representative.
“Claims for deceased victims (regardless of the cause of death) may be submitted only by the Personal Representative,” a statement on the VCF website says. “Each state has laws that define the process for appointment of the Personal Representative and the specific authority granted to that Personal Representative,” it says.
The Washington Blade couldn’t immediately determine the criteria for being approved as a Personal Representative by the D.C. Superior Court and various state courts, including whether a same-sex survivor partner would be eligible for such an appointment.
A spokesperson for the District of Columbia LGBTQ+ Bar Association, which includes many local attorneys who specialize in a wide range of specialized legal issues, couldn’t immediately be reached to find out if one or more of their members might be able to determine the same-sex partner eligibility for Personal Representative status.
In her news media briefing, VCF Special Master Turkel said detailed information about how best to file a claim for 9/11 victim compensation is available on the VCF website.
“Twenty-five years since the events of September 11th , 2001, we know it has become increasingly challenging for claimants to find documents needed to prove their presence at an eligible location, which is one of the key requirements to be eligible for compensation,” she said.
She was referring to the requirement that 9/11 surviving victims seeking a claim for support for injuries or illnesses related to the 9/11 attacks must prove they were present at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon site, or the Shanksville, Pa. site where the hijacked jetliners crashed. Those requirements are separate from the less clearly defined criteria for same-sex couple victim survivor eligibility.
“Our team is committed to ensuring no claimant feels lost or overwhelmed when submitting a claim,” Turkel said at the briefing. “We have a great helpline with real live people who can answer or refer any questions that come in,” she added. “They engage in over 4,000 calls a month on average. We encourage folks to call 1-855-1555 with any questions.”
The VCF website, which has additional detailed information, can be accessed at www.vcf.gov.
National
Remembering the LGBTQ heroes of 9/11 terrorist attacks
25 years later, ‘the heartbreak remains strong’
Many in the LGBTQ community in the D.C. area and throughout the country were expected to join friends, co-workers, and family members this week in commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and on the Pentagon just outside D.C. as well as the jetliner hijacking that ended in a fatal crash in an open field in Shanksville, Pa.
A total of 2,996 people died in the 9/11 attacks, including 19 terrorists who hijacked four jetliners whose passengers included Americans and citizens of many other countries.
Activists involved with local and national LGBTQ advocacy organizations recall witnessing a coming together of LGBTQ people and their co-workers, neighbors, and family members to support one another during a time of unimaginable horror and grief.
Among those who lost their lives in the 9/11 terrorist attacks was American Airlines co-pilot David Charlebois, an out gay man and member of the Gay Pilots Association, who was on American Airlines Flight 77, which the terrorists crashed into the Pentagon.
Also among the terrorist victims in the 9/11 attacks was gay public relations executive and rugby enthusiast Mark Bingham of San Francisco, who was among several passengers of the hijacked United Airlines jet who reportedly stormed the cockpit to regain control of the jetliner before one of the hijackers crashed the jet into the countryside in rural Pennsylvania.
The jet had taken off from Newark, N.J. with its destination being San Francisco. Investigators learned the hijackers turned the plane around and were heading to Washington, D.C., with plans to crash it into the White House or the U.S. Capitol.
The passengers, including Bingham, who stormed the cockpit and were among the 44 passengers and crew who lost their lives in the crash are credited by investigators and family members and friends with saving the lives of hundreds of others if the hijackers succeeded in crashing into the White House or Capitol.
Among the other LGBTQ people known to have lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks was Father Mychal Judge, 68, a gay Franciscan priest who served as a Catholic chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Judge rushed to the scene of the World Trade Center shortly before the Twin Towers collapsed. He was fatally struck by debris falling from the south tower while giving last rites to a fallen firefighter, the Catholic publication reported.
“He was a decent, wonderful human being,” said New York gay journalist Andy Humm, who had interviewed Judge for LGBTQ-related stories prior to the 9/11 attacks. “I saw him at many demonstrations for gay and AIDS causes, showing up in his Franciscan monk’s cassock,” Humm told the Washington Blade five years ago at the time of the 9/11 20th anniversary. “And he was equally beloved by the fire department, there at every major fire tragedy in the city, lending moral support to firefighters,” Humm said.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic group that advocates for LGBTQ supportive policies within the church, reported five years ago that his group was supporting an effort to call on the Catholic Church to officially recognize Fr. Judge as a saint by canonizing him. But DeBernardo told the Blade this week that those efforts failed to obtain the needed support from various Catholic entities, including the Franciscan Order of Friars Minors, of which Judge was affiliated, ending efforts to canonize Judge as a saint.
DeBernardo has written a book about Judge’s life and legacy published in 2023 called “Mychal Judge:Take Me Where You Want Me to Go.”
Among the other widely reported LGBTQ victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a gay couple from California, Daniel Brandhorst and Ronald Gamboa, and their adopted son, David, who were among those who died aboard the United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. The Los Angeles Times reported that Brandhorst, an attorney, and Gamboa, the manager of a Santa Monica Gap store, had adopted three-year-old David when he was an infant.
For many LGBTQ residents of New York and the D.C. area, the suffering over the loss of loved ones, including same-sex partners, was heightened a short time later when they learned they were initially ineligible for local and federal programs aimed at providing financial assistance to survivors of the 9/11 attack victims because same-sex couples were not legally recognized.
At the urging of LGBTQ rights organizations, state and local officials in the New York and the D.C. area took steps to address the initial denial of financial support for surviving same-sex partners In programs under their control. Officials with a massive federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, however, said they did not have legal authority to authorize payments to same-sex partners.
The officials, in the administration of then-President George W. Bush, said the best they could do would be to leave it up to local authorities to determine whether state probate laws would recognize a same-sex partner as a family member for eligibility in the federal aid program for 9/11 survivors, many of whom lived in states outside the New York and D.C. area.
Nicole Nava, a spokesperson for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, a federally funded program established to compensate for physical harm or death caused by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including support for surviving family members, said she would inquire into whether same-sex surviving partners were being supported under that program in subsequent years in response to a request from the Washington Blade.
Jenny Pizer, an attorney for the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, which supported LGBTQ partner survivors of victims of the 9/11 attacks, said the information she and her organization had showed that many if not most of the LGBTQ partner survivors were unable to obtain the federal Victim Compensation Fund payment benefits that married heterosexual spouses obtained. She said she didn’t have a definitive answer on whether some LGBTQ surviving partners were compensated.
However, at least one case where an LGBTQ partner was compensated was reported by the Washington Post in a Jan. 22, 2003, news story about Peggy Neff, the lesbian partner of 18 years of Sheila Hein, 51, a civilian employee at the Pentagon, who was killed when the terrorist hijacked jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.
The Post reported that the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, under the leadership of its director, Kenneth Feinberg, approved an award of $557,390 for Neff in compensation for the loss of her partner. The Post story quoted a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign as saying, “It is our sincere hope that this signals that other gay families who have suffered the loss of a loved one will be treated similarly.”
The compensation program, which is operated by the U.S. Department of Justice, remains in operation until 2090. The Blade will report on any additional similar awards for LGBTQ surviving partners if Nava provides such information.
Events commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks were scheduled to take place this week at memorial sites honoring the 9/11 victims located outside the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., at the site of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City, and the site of the jetliner crash in Shanksville, Pa., which is operated by the U.S. National Park Service.
The U.S. Congress in 2017 and 2021 approved separate bills signed by President Donald Trump during his first term in office and President Joe Biden creating the Global War on Terrorism Memorial and its construction, to be built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. that’s scheduled to be completed in 2028.
The memorial, to be located near the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial close to 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., is intended to honor people who served and were lost in the wars and counterterrorism operations that followed the 9/11 attacks, including U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Longtime LGBTQ rights advocate Jay Fisette, who at the time of the 9/11 attacks held the elected position of chair of the Arlington County Board, which serves as the county’s governing body, was among the Arlington officials that came to the Pentagon’s grounds in Arlington to oversee efforts by firefighters to rescue Pentagon workers on the day of the attack.
At an Oct. 7, 2001, 9/11 Day of Remembrance and Appreciation ceremony held in Arlington, Fisette expressed the views of many in the community in response to the 9/11 attacks.
“Tonight, our community gather as a family,” he told the gathering. “We gather in sorrow and in disbelief, in remembrance and appreciation,” he said. “But we come here, too, with resolve and pride. We come together as Arlingtonians who love our country, as Americans who love our country,” he said.
“Our enemies may hurt our bodies and destroy our buildings, but they will never defeat our determination to make this a world of peace and a community in which our children grow up safe and secure,” Fissette said.
Although some of the same-sex partners of those killed in the 9/11 attacks faced obstacles in obtaining financial support through the federal 9/11 relief program, Tom Hay, the surviving partner of 14 years of American Airlines pilot David Charlebois was treated with respect and honor by American Airlines officials and colleagues at Charlebois’s funeral mass at D.C.’s St. Matthew Cathedral.
More than a dozen uniformed company pilots and flight attendants attended the mass. And a press release issued by American Airlines mentioned Charlebois’s relationship with Hay and told how Hay stood with Charlebois when Charlebois advocated for equal rights for LGBTQ people in the airline industry through his involvement with the National Gay Pilots Association.
“David was an early member of the NGPA,” the American Airlines statement said. “His contribution helped ensure ongoing progress toward fairness and solidarity.”
Activists in New York have said the 9/11 attacks drew attention to the need for legal protections for same-sex couples, including the need for recognition of same-sex marriage, which the U.S. Supreme Court legalized nationwide in its landmark ruling in 2015.
But LGBTQ advocates in New York pointed to the difficulties LGBTQ surviving partners faced when desperately seeking to find out if a partner had survived at the site of the World Trade Center attack where the Red Cross and other emergency relief agencies set up a station near the site of the attack.
“Literally, gay people had to go there, turn around, go back home, and get some paperwork that spouses didn’t have to get to prove a relationship existed,” said Ross Levi, who at the time served as executive director of the New York LGBTQ advocacy group Empire State Pride Agenda.
“You were nervous and scared and sad and then you had to go through that,” Levi told the Blade in 2011 at the time of the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. “And worse yet, other people turned them away, even with the paperwork, saying sorry you’re not a family according to our guidelines.”
Activists said New York City and New York State officials quickly recognized the inequities faced by same-sex partner survivors and took steps to change polices and laws to correct the situation. Among other things, New York’s then-Gov. George Pataki (R) issued an executive order in October 2001 that included surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims of the World Trade Center attacks in receiving full spousal benefits from the state’s Crime Victims Board.
In a separate development, the LGBTQ litigation group Lambda Legal, ESPA, the Human Rights Campaign, and other LGBTQ advocacy groups created the September 11 Gay & Lesbian Family Fund to provide some support to surviving same-sex partners who were ineligible for help from the federal relief fund program.
“The terrorist attack on September 11th is a tragedy that touched every American, impacting people and families from all walks of life,” Jonathan Lovitz, the Human Rights Campaign’s Senior Vice President for Campaigns and Communications told the Blade in a statement this week.
“As in all moments in American history, LGBTQ+ Americans were there, and feel the impact of this day,” he said. “As we remember the lives lost 25 years later, the heartbreak remains strong and the work to ensure that every person can live safe from violence in this country continues.”
2026 Midterm Elections
Chris Pappas wins NH Democratic Senate primary
Gay congressman running to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen
New Hampshire Congressman Chris Pappas on Tuesday won the Democratic primary in the race to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in the U.S. Senate.
Pappas defeated Karishma Manzur, who was his primary challenger, by a 61.8-36.1 percent margin.
The gay congressman will face off against former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu, who defeated former U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in the Republican primary.
“Tonight’s victory sends a clear message that voters are looking for leaders who will fight for their rights, their freedoms, and to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement.
She campaigned for Pappas in Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city, on Aug. 30.
“Chris Pappas has delivered results, stood up for equality, and showed up for the people he serves,” said Robinson in her statement. “HRC was proud to mobilize Equality Voters across New Hampshire to help power this win. We don’t have a second to waste between now and November. We look forward to continuing our work with Rep. Pappas as he drives toward victory in November so he can help return a pro-equality majority to the United States Senate.”
A poll the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released on Aug. 26 showed Sununu ahead of Pappas by a 45-43 percent margin if they were to face off in the general election. The margin of error is +/-2.1 percent.
Pappas would become the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate if he were to win in November.
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