President Donald Trump is refusing to sign a new bipartisan housing bill unless his SAVE Act is approved by the legislative branch.

The bill being prevented from being enacted into law is the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.” The legislation is an attempt by Congress to make buying a home in the U.S. Senate more affordable in response to various factors — including housing shortages and regulatory constraints — that have made homeownership increasingly difficult. The total number of homeowners has nearly stopped growing, with high interest rates and surging home prices pushing more Americans toward renting.

The housing bill was considered highly bipartisan, something that is rare in this Congress. The House voted to pass the bill 358-32 on Tuesday after the Senate approved the measure 85-5 a day earlier. The legislation was led by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate and U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and French Hill (R-Ark.) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Some of the highlights of the legislation are aimed at increasing the supply of affordable housing while making homeownership more accessible. The bill would streamline environmental reviews and direct the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide guidance to communities on reforming zoning and land-use policies that can create barriers to housing development.

The legislation would also expand the definition of “manufactured housing,” making it cheaper and easier to mass-produce homes built in factories before being transported to their sites. To encourage additional development, the bill would provide grants and loans for the construction of new housing, the rehabilitation of aging properties, and the conversion of vacant buildings into residential units. It would also increase certain banks’ Public Welfare Investment cap, allowing them to direct more capital toward low-income and affordable housing projects.

In an effort to help more Americans purchase homes, the legislation would create a program to expand access to small-dollar mortgages, which are often used to finance lower-cost homes, while also seeking to improve housing opportunities for veterans. The bill would further promote homeownership by limiting the number of single-family homes that large institutional investors can own and requiring them to disclose how many such properties they control, a measure intended to prioritize American families over corporate buyers.

The bill the president wants enacted — the SAVE Act — is a restrictive and anti-transgender piece of proposed legislation.

The bill would impose a number of new limitations on voter registration across the country by amending the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require in-person proof of citizenship for anyone seeking to vote in U.S. elections. The bill would also limit acceptable forms of identification to documents such as a birth certificate or passport — records that the Brennan Center for Justice estimates more than 21 million Americans do not possess — effectively restricting access to the ballot. It would also ban online voter registration, DMV voter registration efforts, and mail-in voter registration.

Trump pushed for the SAVE Act to include a provision that would ban gender-affirming medical care for trans minors, even with parental consent, and prohibit trans people from participating in school or professional sports consistent with their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.

Trump also pressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to eliminate the filibuster so the Republican-controlled Congress could pass the SAVE Act, saying Republicans will never win another election without it.

It is expected that Congress will override the president’s veto and pass the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, as it requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate — a threshold the legislation currently exceeds.

It is not expected that the SAVE Act will pass the Senate in its current form. It passed the House, but every Democrat and four Republicans voted against it in the Senate.

Several LGBTQ candidates secured spots on Maryland’s November ballot following Tuesday’s primary elections, though a handful of history-making campaigns fell short.

Congresswoman April McClain Delaney, who is running for re-election in the 6th Congressional District, won in the Democratic primary with 43.65 percent of the vote. Her main opponent, former Congressman David Trone, lost with 37.33 percent of the vote.

When Trone was last in the U.S. House of Representatives, he was a staunch supporter of LGBTQ rights, backing legislation such as the Equality Act. However, Delaney has also supported LGBTQ rights in her position, with the Human Rights Campaign endorsing her for standing up for the LGBTQ community and for “stands ready to fight against MAGA-led attacks.” Robin Ficker won the Republican primary with 42.61 percent of the vote.

In the 5th Congressional District, voters chose who will replace retiring U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer.

Hoyer was a major advocate for LGBTQ rights during his time in office and opposed the Trump-Vance administration’s transgender military ban. He helped pass the state’s marriage equality law in a referendum in 2012, alongside his daughter, who came out as lesbian in the same year.

Adrian Boafo won the Democratic primary for Hoyer’s seat with 31.97 percent of the vote. Boafo is a former state delegate for Prince George’s County. Boafo had received endorsements from both Hoyer and Gov. Wes Moore.  The former state delegate will face Republican Chris Chaffee in November.

Queer candidate Evan Glass lost in the primary election for Montgomery County Executive to Will Jawando, an at-large member of the County Council, and Andrew Friedson, a councilmember for District 1 in Montgomery County.

Jawando is ahead as the final votes are counted.

Moore is running for a second term in office. He won the Democratic primary, alongside Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller with 87.79 percent of the vote. Moore and Miller will face off against Republicans Dan Cox and Rob Krop.

Cox ran against Moore in the 2022 gubernatorial race.

Josie Caballero, a candidate running for the at-large seat on the Montgomery County Council, lost with 9.24 percent of the vote. Caballero would have been the first trans woman elected to office in Maryland if she had won. Former Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich won the primary race with 14.62 percent of the votes.

For House District 4, voters can pick up to three candidates. In the Democratic primary, this included Andrew Duck, Jerry Donald, and Alleria Stanley. If elected in the general election as one of three House of Delegates members, Stanley would become the first trans person elected to the General Assembly. 

In the Republican race, all three candidates will advance to the general election.

Gay and lesbian candidates running for re-election to the General Assembly overwhelmingly won their Democratic primary races.

State Del. Joe Vogel, who is running for re-election to Montgomery County’s District 17, was one of three candidates chosen by the Democrats and will be on the ballot in November. He received 28.41 percent of the vote, with Ryan Spiegel receiving 28.45 percent. No Republicans ran in the primary, so none will be on the November ballot.

Christopher Reed, who also ran for the House in District 17, is openly queer but received only 10.93 percent of the vote. All three candidates who will move on to the general election are incumbents in the seat.

Also moving past the primary election is state Del. Ashanti Martinez, who represents House District 22 in Prince George’s County. He is the sole incumbent to run for re-election in the race.

State Del. Gabriel Acevero, who represents House District 39 in Montgomery County, will move on to the general election, along with state Del. Anne Kaiser of District 14 in Montgomery County and state Del. Kris Fair of House District 3 in Frederick County.

State Del. Luke Clippinger of House District 46 in Baltimore City will move on to the general election as well, earning 33.69 percent of the vote. The race for House District 46 includes three Democratic candidates who will advance immediately, as well as one Republican who will advance. 

State Sen. Mary Washington (D-Baltimore County) won the Democratic primary unopposed. When she was first elected to the House of Delegates in 2010, Washington became Maryland’s first openly LGBTQ African American elected official. With no Republican opponent, she is expected to keep her seat in November.

Other LGBTQ candidates ran for local and state seats for the first time, with many hoping to make history in state politics.

Matt Menter, who was running in House District 41, will not advance to the general election. In a race with eight candidates, Menter failed to break into the top three. In the past, Menter served on Baltimore City’s LGBTQ Commission.

Spencer Dixon ran as a Democratic candidate House District 32 and will advance to the general election alongside incumbent Mike Rogers and J. Sandy Bartlett. Dixon is an openly gay man and has worked on Democratic political campaigns in Maryland in the past.

Jamar Day ran for an at-large seat on the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners, but with 11.44 percent of the vote, he will not advance to the general election. If elected, he would have been the first openly queer member of the board, as he identified as pansexual.

Joe Toolan ran for the Anne Arundel County Council’s District 6 seat in the Democratic primary but fell short with 12.78 percent of the vote. Toolan previously served as the first chair of the Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs.

Gavin Buckley, the candidate who won the Democratic primary for Anne Arundel County Council District 6, is the former mayor of Annapolis.

Byron Macfarlane won the Democratic primary for Howard County’s Register of Wills with 61.79 percent of the votes. Macfarlane has held this position since 2010, when he became the first openly gay person elected in Howard County.

Gabrielle Zwi, a nonbinary candidate, ran for an at-large seat on the Democratic Central Committee in Montgomery County. The top eight candidates will advance to the general election in this race, and so far, according to the Maryland Board of Elections, Zwi is among them.

Jamie McGonnigal is running for the Prince George’s County Board of Education for District 3, but the primary for his election was canceled. Therefore, he will be on the ballot for the general election. If elected, he would be the first openly gay man to serve on the board. 

A new study reveals that LGBTQ candidates running for public office are seeing an unprecedented amount of harassment and threats as President Trump and his far-right MAGA supporters continue to strip protections for minority groups at all levels of government.

The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, the nation’s largest LGBTQ candidate training and leadership organization, recently partnered with Loyola Marymount University to collect data on the rising political violence experienced by LGBTQ candidates. The organization is closely affiliated with the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, its sister political action arm dedicated to helping LGBTQ candidates get elected.

The Washington Blade sat down with Evan Low, president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute and LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, to discuss what the data reveals about the climate LGBTQ candidates have found themselves in.

Low argued that the findings cannot be separated from the broader political environment facing LGBTQ Americans in 2026. Anti-transgender legislation continues to surge across the country while federal recognition of LGBTQ communities has diminished. This is the second consecutive year Trump has declined to recognize June as Pride month. He also made no public statement commemorating Juneteenth, the anniversary marking the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.

The survey included 215 LGBTQ+ candidates who ran for office between 2023 and 2025 from 42 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C., and asked about their experiences while running for office.

The data, while not particularly surprising given the highly divisive political era we have been living through under Trump 2.0, contains stark findings showing that LGBTQ candidates are not only finding it more difficult to run for office — something protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments — but that it has also become increasingly dangerous for openly LGBTQ candidates to do so.

One of the report’s most significant findings focuses on what happens before an LGBTQ person’s name ever appears on a ballot or yard sign: widespread fear among prospective candidates. Nearly 9 in 10 candidates worried that running as an openly LGBTQ+ person would increase their risk of harassment or attack, while 4 in 5 feared physical violence.

Key Takeaways From the Data

Harassment Is the Norm — Not the Exception: Nearly two-thirds of LGBTQ candidates experienced in-person harassment, while nearly 8 in 10 faced online abuse, with many encountering it regularly.

The escalation from rhetoric to serious threats mirrors the current political climate. One in three candidates received death threats online, and one in seven experienced them in person, highlighting the severity of the current threat environment.

Campaigns Altered by Safety Concerns: More than half of candidates changed how or where they campaigned due to safety fears, and nearly 1 in 5 described the impact as significant — limiting public engagement and visibility.

Security Out of Reach: Fewer than 1 in 10 candidates could afford private security, even as threats escalated, underscoring a growing inequity in who can safely run for office.

Severe Mental Health Impact: Nearly two-thirds of candidates said attacks negatively impacted their mental health, with some reporting long-term trauma and lasting psychological effects.

“What we’re seeing is not just harassment, it’s a systemic challenge to participation,” said Elliot Imse, the now former executive director of LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. “When candidates are forced to change their behavior, limit public engagement, or reconsider running altogether because of safety concerns, that’s not just a personal issue — it’s a breakdown in the conditions required for a healthy democracy.”

“This isn’t theoretical — I, like so many LGBTQ+ candidates and elected leaders, have lived it,” said Daniel Hernandez, vice president of political programs at LGBTQ+ Victory Fund. “From surviving gun violence to having my own campaign office targeted, I know how real these threats are and how deeply they affect candidates, their teams, and their families. The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute has been doing this work for years — preparing candidates, supporting them through these challenges, and making sure they’re not facing it alone. This report makes clear the stakes are higher than ever. If we want people to step up and serve, we have to meet this moment with the resources, support, and commitment to their safety demands.”

Low, who before leading the Victory organizations was an openly gay elected official representing California’s 26th Assembly District, which includes portions of Silicon Valley and San Jose, views the findings as both a political violence issue and a threat to democracy itself.

“We’re living in a moment in a time in which the pendulum is swinging backwards,” Low told the Blade. “We’ve seen a historic amount of anti-LGBTQ+ legislative proposals across this country. So naturally, when members of our community are targeted, it gives that license then to be harassed and discriminated against accordingly. It absolutely is a challenge to democracy.”

The data also shows that LGBTQ candidates face unique barriers to entry — many of them financial. Low argued that reducing those barriers would help diversify candidate pools and create a more representative democracy.

“Does [the current system] disproportionately then impact and limit the segment within our populations to serve? The answer is absolutely yes. When you think about the increased challenges of a barrier to entry– that’s why we’re focused on doing the report in the first place. It also then goes to show the importance of how we utilize taxpayer dollars and budgets accordingly to help encourage and support members of the community to run for office.”

He used that point to emphasize the importance of the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, not only in collecting data on these trends but also in helping LGBTQ candidates navigate them.

“That’s the fundamental reason why there’s the need for the Victory Fund of the Victory Institute,” he said. “It’s to say that the members of our community will not face this or run alone. They should know that there is a national network, a national organization that will be the wind in their sails to help guide them.”

So far in 2026, the Victory Fund has endorsed at least 249 candidates.

In addition to providing financial support, the Victory Institute helps LGBTQ candidates prepare for the realities of the campaign trail, including coping with harassment, threats, and personal security concerns.

Low expanded on what that reality looks like in 2026 as anti-transgender legislation continues to surge and federal recognition of LGBTQ communities has diminished.

“Part of that discussion is we don’t try to sugarcoat it,” he said when emphasizing the realities facing LGBTQ candidates. “We will speak truth about ‘Here’s how to put a campaign budget together’ and ‘Here’s best practices on public speaking.’ But also we have to deal with showing the unfortunate reality on ‘Here’s how to keep your family safe.’ ‘Here’s how to retain and keep in mind your mental health’…especially when you see members of our community being doxxed constantly by bots and such hate speech.”

He also highlighted the unique challenges facing transgender candidates running for office, particularly as hundreds of bills across the country continue to target transgender people.

“We hear that many times there may be individuals from the community, specifically the trans community, who may want to run for office, but their existence is criminalized, which is to say that they may live in a state or jurisdiction in which it’s criminal to exist; laws prohibiting them from being who they are,” Low said.

“When many of our candidates run for office, they are not running because they are trans, they’re not running because they’re gay or a member of their community, they’re running to advance the quality of life on the key issues on housing affordability, health care, education, you name it, and so these are the campaign issues, but the challenge exists as well.”

Those pressures often lead candidates to question whether running for office is worth the personal toll.

“Many times the candidate and/or elected official will speak candidly with members of our organization to say, ‘Is it worth it anymore? What should I do? Is this something that I should continue? This is taking a personal toll on my family, but I care about the call to service and making a difference in my community.'”

Low also spoke about what he sees as more than simple anti-LGBTQ bias in politics, pointing instead to the growing number of laws targeting LGBTQ people.

“I don’t think it’s simply bias — it’s fact. Again, we can cite laws on the books and proposals across the country, so no wonder why the conversation is so toxic and hostile to members of our community.”

Despite those threats, Low said LGBTQ candidates continue to run for office in record numbers.

“While this political violence report does reflect the hard truth about the challenges to our community, we have seen more candidates apply for an endorsement and sign up for our programs than we’ve ever seen before. We have seen more candidates run for federal office than we ever have had in the history of our 35 years as an organization. What does that tell us? It tells us that yes, it is a challenging and harmful time, yet members of our community are willing to run toward the front lines and answer the call for service.”

The data shows that queer women and transgender candidates are among those most heavily impacted by political violence and heightened political polarization.

“We’ve seen specifically LGBTQ+ women and members of our trans community being disproportionately impacted by [political violence]. When you disaggregate the data, it is also really important to address within our community. We do know anecdotally, as well as from the report, that it may be more challenging for LGBTQ+ women and our trans individuals given some of the other cited conclusions.”

Two of the issues that disproportionately affect transgender candidates and LGBTQ women are mental health challenges and increased security needs.

“What we’ve seen is some of the top demands for services. In many jurisdictions, governmental entities do not have budgets for it– either access to mental health services, as well as public safety services,” he explained. “Security — whether it be surveillance cameras around their homes — those are the key areas. Oftentimes candidates are left to their own devices and may not have access to those key areas to support them.”

Low noted that when LGBTQ candidates are elected, they can advance policies aimed at reducing discrimination, pointing to legislation he championed while serving in California.

“I passed a bill to require Peace Officers Standards and Training curriculum on diversity training for members of the LGBT community. Police officers would have to go through diversity and sensitivity training with respect to members of the LGBT community. That’s something that I very much would like to see amplified, not just state by state, but at the federal level — federal funding to support standards and trainings in dealing with members of the LGBT community.”

“The key data points reflect an increase in not only violence but also intimidation and increased barriers to entry over the years. You can make the direct nexus between that of the increase in anti-LGBTQ legislation and the current rhetoric that exists in this political environment. It’s not just here in the United States — you see it globally as well. So it is something that most certainly we’re seeing increase.”

When asked about the long-term consequences, Low warned that political violence could make American democracy less representative and discourage future generations of LGBTQ leaders from seeking office.

“I think we will likely see a decrease in the diversification of candidates and their lived experiences. It can be insurmountable for those from a younger generation who have to put food on the table and support their families. When it takes political violence to a different level and doxxing and being harassed online, it’s taken on a whole new meaning. We may see that deterioration of the quality and caliber of candidates, or not as much participation from the wide segment of our LGBTQ+ community.”

The Blade also asked how he feels about the future given the current political climate.

“One can always be optimistic and hopeful for the future, but I won’t hold my breath.”

When asked what success would look like for the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, Low said he hopes to see a decrease in threats against candidates, more LGBTQ people elected to office, and fewer legislative efforts targeting the community.

“I think certainly a decrease when we do this report again and have seen a decrease [in threats] is oftentimes telling. But similarly, seeing less of the legislative proposals in various state houses that are hostile, that criminalize our existence, is another key factor. Those are the two data points that we would cite and highlight as it relates to the political climate with respect to LGBTQ+ leaders.”