Politics
LGBTQ candidates running in key races up and down the ballot
Out lawmakers could tip the balance of power in state legislatures and more

The LGBTQ Victory Fund is supporting “a ton of amazing LGBTQ candidates who’ve stepped forward” this election cycle, the organization’s vice president of political programs, Sean Meloy, told the Washington Blade during an interview last week.
Among the “amazing, historic candidates running for office at all levels,” he said, are national officeholders like U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and U.S. House candidates Will Rollins (D-Calif.) and Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), along with those running for state and local positions across the country.
Meloy hails from and currently resides in the “swingiest swing state” of 2024, Pennsylvania. He said, “I’ve never seen the kind of LGBTQ organizing at the level it currently is,” thanks in part to Victory’s coordinated efforts with Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign.
The Keystone State is critical for the presidential race and also home to key contests that could decide control of the House and Senate.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania is running against mega-millionaire hedge fund executive David McCormick in one of the four Senate races of 2024 that Cook Political Report considers a toss-up, a distinction he shares with two incumbent House Democrats and one incumbent House Republican from the state.
The LGBTQ vote is key, which helps to explain the focus on organizing within the LGBTQ coalition, but Meloy stressed that exciting candidates like gay Pennsylvania State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta can boost the performance of others closer to and at the top of the ticket this year.
Kenyatta, who last year was named by President Joe Biden to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Black Americans, is “running an amazing campaign,” Meloy said, for auditor general.
He promises to “help bring his voice as a champion for normal folks to government, to make sure our tax dollars are used effectively and efficiently,” Meloy said, adding that “electing a young gay Black man, I think, goes a real long way.”
Folks who have heard him speak will recognize that Kenyatta “is fighting for them,” that he “actually looks like the people that [he’s] meant to represent,” bringing “multiple different historic firsts” to his campaign, Meloy said.
Broadly, “The LGBTQ vote and LGBTQ candidates are going to decide exactly what the makeup of our government looks like, whether it is a pro-equality government that includes LGBTQ people at the table, or one that is vehemently anti-LGBTQ and continues to demonize and attack our community,” he said.
Speaking of attacks against the community, former President Donald Trump and Republican candidates have spent tens of millions of dollars on anti-trans attack ads. Meloy is doubtful they will succeed, but noted the “polling is all over the place” so it is difficult to tell whether the messaging has harmed candidates supported by Victory.
“They’re doubling down on trying to cash in on bigotry, and we just have to make sure that that doesn’t work,” he said.
The battleground states
Along with Baldwin, Meloy said Victory is investing in key down-ticket candidates in Wisconsin, with a staffer on the ground in the battleground state working to elect LGBTQ leaders — like Ryan Spaude, running for Wisconsin State Assembly, and Kristin Alfheim, running for Wisconsin State Senate — who “are going to make or break whether or not Democrats lift that state legislative chamber.”
“They’re very much on the tip of the spear there, and that girds and is also supporting Tammy Baldwin for her reelection,” he said, adding that with help from their elections, the state could “potentially follow other Midwestern legislative chambers like Minnesota and Michigan, to pass pro-LGBTQ legislation.”
“That’s the change that we saw happen in Michigan,” another swing state, “that led to a record amount of LGBTQ folks getting elected, and then passing pro-LGBTQ legislation,” Meloy explained. “Similar things happened in the Pennsylvania State House, fair districts were passed, we doubled the amount of LGBTQ people, and then a record amount of pro-choice, and pro-LGBTQ legislation was passed.”
In Michigan, he said, LGBTQ candidates like Kyle Wright will help Democrats keep their House majority.
Meloy also pointed to the swing state of North Carolina, where even if far-right gubernatorial hopeful Mark Robinson is defeated, LGBTQ candidates like Lisa Grafstein, the state Senate’s lone LGBTQ voice, will help to guard against a GOP supermajority that would “pass absolutely crazy anti-LGBTQ legislation.”
Out west in the swing state of Nevada, Democrats are poised to pick up a couple of seats in both chambers of the legislature, which would give them control of the state Assembly and the state Senate, a check against Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
“We’ve got Ryan Hampton running to pick up a seat” in the assembly, Meloy said, along with Dallas Harris, who is running for the state Senate.
And across the border in Arizona, another swing state, Lorena Austin is “running there to help keep a seat,” he said.
Elsewhere, opportunities to make history
In deep-red Iowa, Meloy said, “Aime Wichtendahl is running for the state House, and she’d be the first trans voice ever elected to that state legislature.”
“Similarly, in Florida,” he said, “we could have a record amount of LGBTQ legislators impacting the balance of power in Tallahassee, which is extremely important when you have such an anti-LGBTQ governor,” Ron DeSantis (R).
Meloy added that the Sunshine State also has the opportunity to elect its first trans state legislator, Ashley Brundage. Together with the other LGBTQ candidates running in Florida, her election could potentially triple the number of out state lawmakers serving in the legislature.
Congress
Congress passes ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ with massive cuts to health insurance coverage
Roughly 1.8 million LGBTQ Americans rely on Medicaid

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” heads to President Donald Trump’s desk following the vote by the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday, which saw two nays from GOP members and unified opposition from the entire Democratic caucus.
To partially offset the cost of tax breaks that disproportionately favor the wealthy, the bill contains massive cuts to Medicaid and social safety net programs like food assistance for the poor while adding a projected $3.3 billion to the deficit.
Policy wise, the signature legislation of Trump’s second term rolls back clean energy tax credits passed under the Biden-Harris administration while beefing up funding for defense and border security.
Roughly 13 percent of LGBTQ adults in the U.S., about 1.8 million people, rely on Medicaid as their primary health insurer, compared to seven percent of non-LGBTQ adults, according to the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute think tank on sexual orientation and gender identities.
In total, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cuts will cause more than 10 million Americans to lose their coverage under Medicaid and anywhere from three to five million to lose their care under Affordable Care Act marketplace plans.
A number of Republicans in the House and Senate opposed the bill reasoning that they might face political consequences for taking away access to healthcare for, particularly, low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid. Poorer voters flocked to Trump in last year’s presidential election, exit polls show.
A provision that would have blocked the use of federal funds to reimburse medical care for transgender youth was blocked by the Senate Parliamentarian and ultimately struck from the legislation — reportedly after the first trans member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and the first lesbian U.S. senator, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), shored up unified opposition to the proposal among Congressional Democrats.
Congress
Ritchie Torres says he is unlikely to run for NY governor
One poll showed gay Democratic congressman nearly tied with Kathy Hochul

Gay Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres of New York is unlikely to challenge New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in the state’s next gubernatorial race, he said during an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I’m unlikely to run for governor,” he said. ““I feel like the assault that we’ve seen on the social safety net in the Bronx is so unprecedented. It’s so overwhelming that I’m going to keep my focus on Washington, D.C.”
Torres and Hochul were nearly tied in a poll this spring of likely Democratic voters in New York City, fueling speculation that the congressman might run. A Siena College poll, however, found Hochul leading with a wider margin.
Back in D.C., the congressman and his colleagues are unified in their opposition to President Donald Trump’s signature legislation, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which heads back to the House after passing the Senate by one vote this week.
To pay for tax cuts that disproportionately advantage the ultra-wealthy and large corporations, the president and Congressional Republicans have proposed massive cuts to Medicaid and other social programs.
A provision in the Senate version of the bill that would have blocked the use of federal funds to reimburse medical care for transgender youth was blocked by the Senate Parliamentarian and ultimately struck from the legislation, reportedly after pressure from transgender U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and lesbian U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.).
Torres on “Morning Joe” said, “The so-called Big Beautiful Bill represents a betrayal of the working people of America and nowhere more so than in the Bronx,” adding, “It’s going to destabilize every health care provider, every hospital.”
Congress
House Democrats oppose Bessent’s removal of SOGI from discrimination complaint forms
Congressional Equality Caucus sharply criticized move

A letter issued last week by a group of House Democrats objects to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s removal of sexual orientation and gender identity as bases for sex discrimination complaints in several Equal Employment Opportunity forms.
Bessent, who is gay, is the highest ranking openly LGBTQ official in American history and the second out Cabinet member next to Pete Buttigieg, who served as transportation secretary during the Biden-Harris administration.
The signatories to the letter include a few out members of Congress, Congressional Equality Caucus chair and co-chairs Mark Takano (Calif.), Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), and Becca Balint (Vt.), along with U.S. Reps. Nikema Williams (Ga.), Hank Johnson (Ga.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (Ill.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Joyce Beatty (Ohio), Lloyd Doggett (Texas), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas).
The letter explains the “critical role” played by the EEO given the strictures and limits on how federal employees can find recourse for unlawful workplace discrimination — namely, without the ability to file complaints directly with the Employment Opportunity Commission or otherwise engage with the agency unless the complainant “appeal[s] an agency’s decision following the agency’s investigation or request[s] a hearing before an administrative judge.”
“Your attempt to remove ‘gender identity’ and ‘sexual orientation’ as bases for sex discrimination complaints in numerous Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) forms will create unnecessary hurdles to employees filing EEO complaints and undermine enforcement of federal employee’s nondiscrimination protections,” the members wrote in their letter.
They further explain the legal basis behind LGBTQ inclusive nondiscrimination protections for federal employees in the EEOC’s decisions in Macy v. Holder (2012) and Baldwin v. Foxx (2015) and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020).
“It appears that these changes may be an attempt by the department to dissuade employees from reporting gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination,” the lawmakers wrote. “Without forms clearly enumerating gender identity and sexual orientation as forms of sex discrimination, the average employee who experiences these forms of discrimination may see these forms and not realize that the discrimination they experienced was unlawful and something that they can report and seek recourse for.”
“A more alarming view would be that the department no longer plans to fulfill its legal obligations to investigate complaints of gender identity and sexual orientation and ensure its
employees are working in an environment free from these forms of discrimination,” they added.
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