UPDATE: Tyler Titus conceded the race for Erie County Executive on Wednesday. They issued the following statement: “Since launching my campaign, I’ve talked with so many people who found a home in our campaign, who found light and inspiration in our shared vision for an inclusive future. I’ve talked with countless transgender youth in Erie County and across the country who told me our campaign inspired them to strive for greater heights, defy expectations, and feel hope for a safer, brighter future.”

Erie, Pa., school board president Tyler Titus was behind by more than 4,000 votes shortly before midnight on Tuesday in their bid to become the nation’s first openly transgender and nonbinary person to win election as a county executive.

Titus, a Democrat, had 28,253 votes, or 45.9 percent, compared to their Republican rival Brenton Davis, who had 32,786 votes, or 53.3 percent, with 147 of the county’s 149 precincts counted, according to the latest available returns on Tuesday night from the Erie County election board.

The Erie Times-News reported that Davis declared victory in the hotly contested county executive race shortly before midnight, claiming that the “math” from the vote count made it no longer possible for Titus to win.

It could not immediately be determined how many mail-in ballots were uncounted on Tuesday night, but the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which endorsed Titus and raised over $283,000 for their campaign, said it heard from sources that as many as 4,000 mail-in ballots had yet to be counted.

Josh Rosenbaum, Titus’s campaign manager, said election officials would resume counting ballots at 9 a.m. Wednesday. He said Titus would make a statement sometime on Wednesday. 

“The [Titus] campaign is going to review everything in the morning and make sure everything is in before they make a final decision one way or another,” Victory Fund spokesperson Elliot Imse told the Washington Blade.

Political observers said Titus ran an aggressive, well-funded campaign against Davis, who Titus supporters say appealed to anti-transgender and anti-LGBTQ sentiment among some voters by accusing Titus of planning to impose an “unknown agenda” on Erie County.

Davis also criticized Titus for raising most of Titus’s campaign funds from donors who live outside of the county and outside of Pennsylvania. The Titus campaign raised just over $541,000 as of Nov. 1, more than double the amount raised by the Davis campaign. A significant percentage of the funds raised by the Titus campaign came through the fundraising effort of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the national group that raises funds for LGBTQ candidates running for public office throughout the country.

“Tyler Titus is continuing the sale of Erie County government to out-of-region donors who have pumped huge dollars into what is supposed to be a local political race,” the Davis campaign said in an Oct. 25 statement. “When somebody outside Erie County invests this kind of money in a county-level election, you can bet it’s not about improving the lives of people here,” the statement said. “It’s about imposing an unknown agenda with mystery dollars.”

The Titus campaign and its supporters called the Davis campaign’s claims about out-of-town donors with a hidden agenda an unfounded ruse aimed at diverting voters’ attention from the issues that Titus raised to improve the lives of Erie County residents.

During the campaign, Rosenbaum, Titus’s campaign manager, called Titus’s ability to raise money from supporters outside the county a sign that their ideas and positions on the issues enjoy widespread support.

“It’s exciting to us that there are people from all across Erie County, across Pennsylvania and some across the country who believe in Tyler’s message and Tyler’s ability to lead Erie County into a future that’s healthy, safe and prosperous for all of us,” Rosenbaum told the Erie Times-News. “It shows that Tyler is inspiring to so many people.”

Titus became the first out transgender person to win election to public office in Pennsylvania in 2017 when Titus won election to the Erie City school board. Fellow school board members later elected Titus to serve as president of the board.

In May of this year Titus won an upset victory in the Erie County Democratic primary in a four-candidate race to capture the nomination for the County Executive post. Most Democratic Party leaders in the county supported County Councilor Carl Anderson, whom Titus beat in the primary by a margin of just 218 votes. Following the primary, the Erie County Democratic Party and the Pennsylvania Democratic Party endorsed Titus and actively supported Titus’s campaign.

However, Democratic candidate Rita Bishop, who finished in fourth place in the primary and who identifies as a lesbian, announced she was breaking ranks with her party to endorse and actively support Republican Davis in the November election. 

In a controversial Facebook message on Oct. 25, Bishop posted five photos of Titus, in one of which Titus was wearing female clothes that was taken before Titus fully transitioned to their status as a transgender and nonbinary person.

“Who is the real Tyler Titus?” Bishop stated in her posting. “He doesn’t know.”   

The posting drew an immediate flurry of more than two-dozen postings by Facebook users denouncing Bishop for what they called a hurtful and hateful attempt to attack a transgender candidate.

Titus’s supporters said they were hopeful that what they considered an attempt by Bishop and GOP candidate Davis to use the trans issue to distract voters’ attention from Titus’s positions on how the Erie County government can be improved would be unsuccessful.

But some of Titus’s supporters said the anti-trans attacks by Davis supporters could be successful in alienating voters who otherwise might have supported the Democratic candidate for county executive. 

Titus has a master’s degree in community counseling and a doctorate degree in social work. Titus has worked in recent years as a licensed professional counselor operating a private counseling practice

Titus’s campaign website says Titus is married to Shraddha Prabhu, an assistant professor at Pennsylvania’s Edinboro University, “and the proud parent of two phenomenal children.”

Political observers have pointed out that Erie County is considered an election bellwether for the nation as well as for Pennsylvania, which they say could be predictive of whether Democrats or Republicans come out ahead in the 2022 congressional midterm elections. Donald Trump narrowly won Erie County in the 2016 presidential election and President Joe Biden won in the county by a close margin in 2020.

But in addition to Titus’s status as a transgender and nonbinary candidate, the Titus campaign stressed that Titus was a progressive who ran to the left of their Democratic primary rivals.

“The campaign is anchored by the belief that progressive policies are popular, and that when you speak directly to the values of the voter, you can win anywhere,” an Oct. 18 statement from the Titus campaign said.