“There is always a lull after a tempest, and so the political world has subsided into an unwonted calm since the election,” commented a reporter for the New York Times. “The Republicans are naturally . . . exultant over their sweeping victories.” Actually not a crystal ball prediction for next week’s elections outcome but a look back at a midterm cycle that presaged a violent presidential election cycle that followed two years later.

The American nation was reeling from a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision on a divisive subject matter, one of the two main political parties had fractured, additionally Congress and the president were caught up in social and cultural issues along with dealing with a continuing financial panic in the U.S. caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy.

If any of that sounds familiar and ripped from today’s headlines it actually isn’t. Those were the conditions in American 164 years ago in 1858 two years before the Civil War. There are parallels and the argument to be made that the current political environment nearly mirrors that time.

The issue of the day was slavery and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney and the court’s Dred Scott decision. The nation reeling from the 1857 financial panic and then the nation’s chief executive, James Buchanan, an honest, talented and skillful politician, who was no match for the forces that tore at the country in the late 1850s, setting the stage for the violence that followed as the country’s voters became polarized and divided.

The decision earlier this past year by the Roberts Supreme Court to overturn Roe. v. Wade, the current levels of inflation, the war in Ukraine, which has negatively impacted the world economy and the U.S., and then the fact that the Republican Party has turned the very existence of transgender Americans coupled with a rash of LGBTQ book bans and “Don’t Say Gay” laws both passed and proposed, and finally a nation still recovering from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has created nearly a similar perfect storm.

The majority of voters in the Republican camp say it’s the economy while Democrats say its threats to democracy a carry over from the Trump era and the events of the Capitol Insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Women’s reproductive rights in the aftermath of the demise of Roe v. Wade has also been a focal point of Democratic campaigns.

Yet the focus of many GOP campaigns is still pounding away at LGBTQ issues, “parents’ rights” a talking pointing rallying voters around stopping the so-called “LGBTQ agenda” in schools.

More troubling has been the rise in domestic white nationalistic groups, neo-Nazi and far-right extremists who target LGBTQ Americans and other minorities in increasingly violent demonstrations such as those seen at “Drag Queen Story” hours and then too targeting hospitals and healthcare for transgender youth with threats of violence.

The rise in anti-LGBTQ animus, especially on trans youth has impacted the campaign trail as a major campaign issue especially in swing states. Politico reported this week that former Trump White House aide Stephen Miller, through his America First Legal PAC, has targeted swing states with an avalanche of radio adverts and direct mail materials that target trans youth healthcare which anti-trans pundits have labeled “gender mutilation.”

In states like Florida and Texas which have passed draconian measures to limit trans healthcare the over arching worry of voters of the economy and democracy itself has been married to LGBTQ issues by the Republican candidates.

Governmental agencies have also targeted the trans community. Last week, the Florida Board of Medicine and Board of Osteopathic Medicine Joint Rules/Legislative Committee advanced a rule that will effectively ban gender-affirming care for minors in the state. 

Against this backdrop, in a history making first, the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the only national organization dedicated to electing LGBTQ leaders to public office, released a report last month detailing that at least 1,065 out LGBTQ people ran or are running for offices with elections in all fifty states, the most in history.

The following races are considered key in this midterm cycle;

• Tina Kotek, would be one of the nation’s first lesbian governors.
• Maura Healey, would be one of the nation’s first lesbian governors.
• Becca Balint, would be the first woman and the first LGBTQ person elected to Congress from Vermont. Vital to maintaining a pro-equality majority in Congress.
• Erick Russell, would be the first Black LGBTQ statewide elected official in U.S. history.
• Kris Mayes, will be critical to protecting LGBTQ and reproductive rights in Arizona. Arizona has a ban on abortion that Mayes has committed to not enforcing, while her opponent has committed the opposite.
• Kameron Nelson, would restore LGBTQ representation in the South Dakota state legislature. South Dakota is one of four state with zero LGBTQ state legislators.
• Ally Layman, will be vital to restoring reproductive rights in West Virginia. West Virginia was the second state to pass an abortion ban after the fall of Roe.
• Venton Jones, will be one of the first LGBTQ Black men elected to the state legislature. Will be a vital vote against anti-LGBTQ legislation led by Greg Abbott.
• Janelle Perez, would be one of the first LGBTQ women elected to the state Senate. In the wake of “Don’t Say Gay,” she would also be the only LGBTQ parent in the state legislature.
• James Roesener, would be the first trans man elected to a state legislature in U.S. history.

New York Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, an openly gay man and the first LGBTQ person to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in his own reelection race to keep his seat in New York’s 17th congressional district, is in trouble after Republican nominee, state Assemblyman Michael Lawler, has shifted the race from “lean Democrat” to “toss up.”

That the newly redrawn district is competitive has come as a shock, given that President Joe Biden won the area by 10 points in 2020, the Cook Political Report noted adding that if Lawler defeats Maloney, it would be the first time a Republican has defeated the chair of the DCCC in 40 years.

The first out LGBTQ person elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, Angie Craig, who represents Minnesota’s 2nd congressional district; out Rep. Christopher Pappas from New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district; are also considered “toss ups” by the Cook Political Report.

Elsewhere “MAGA extremists,” including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) continue to bolster efforts to stymie LGBTQ equality rights and gains hitting the campaign trail on behalf of GOP candidates.

Cruz attacked trans people and their supporters most recently during a rally for Virginia congressional candidate Yesli Vega that took place at a Prince William County church a week ago.

“Virginia is a parent state … this is a battle between sanity and insanity,” said the Texas Republican during the rally that took place at the Montclair Tabernacle Church in Dumfries. “These people are nuts. They can’t figure out what a woman is. The last I checked, that was not a trick question.”

Greene continues to publicly vilify LGBTQ people using disparaging hateful terms like “groomer” and accusing Democrats of supporting an LGBTQ “pedophile” agenda.

On the West Coast in another critical race, out candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner, an attorney and regional emergency manager from central Oregon, is locked in a tight race with Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the state’s 5th congressional district. Chavez-DeRemer backed Trump and has previously indicated support of an abortion ban beginning around six weeks of pregnancy, the first point at which doctors can detect electrical activity in what would become a heart.

Political analysts see LGBTQ issues as a focal point in many local and statewide races as school boards and communities continue efforts to ban LGBTQ-themed books and attacks on trans youth.

There are positive indicators, for example, California is poised to become the first state in the nation to achieve 10 percent LGBTQ representation in its state legislature. (California’s four out LGBTQ state senators are serving terms through 2024.) 

The messaging though from Victory Fund and other LGBTQ groups is blunt: LGBTQ lives, prosperity, and rights are on ballots across the nation, the LGBTQ voters and allies must counter the GOP onslaught.