Attorney General Ken Paxton won the Republican Senate primary in Texas on Tuesday, ousting incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Paxton won the primary against the four-term incumbent in large part due to President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Despite Cornyn voting with Trump more than 90 percent of the time, political insiders say being supportive isn’t enough to win Trump’s endorsement anymore — Republican candidates need to embrace the full MAGA image, something Paxton has done.

Paxton has served as Texas attorney general since 2015 and, before that, worked as a Texas state representative. He has approached both roles with what LGBTQ activists call a “consistently Anti-LGBTQ+ Record.” Following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges — the case that made same-sex marriage the law of the land — Paxton advised Texas county clerks they could refuse marriage licenses to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

His anti-LGBTQ crusade doesn’t stop at fighting against marriage equality.

Paxton has repeatedly demanded medical records for transgender youth in multiple states — including Texas, Georgia, and Washington — in hopes of making the practice illegal. His anti-trans actions go far past medical records. Paxton issued an opinion barring trans Texans from changing the sex on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates, claiming any changes made were “unlawfully altered,” and helped the DOJ reach an agreement with a Texas’s children’s hospital for providing minors gender-affirming care, eventually leading to a 10 million dollar settlement. He also authored a non-legally binding opinion equating gender-affirming healthcare for youth to child abuse.

In addition to his long history of anti-LGBTQ policy in the Lone Star State, Paxton is no stranger to controversy.

Multiple impeachment efforts brought against him in the state House of Representatives for “abuse of office” — with the state Senate later acquitting him — allegations that he used his office to assist large campaign donors, namely Nate Paul, and a widely publicized separation from his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, all impacted his run for the U.S. Senate seat — but not enough to keep him from the office.

Lynne Bowman, vice president of campaigns at the Human Rights Campaign, issued a statement following the announcement of Paxton’s primary win.

“Texans have a clear choice this fall, and an opportunity to reject failed policies that hurt all families,” Bowman sent to the Blade via email. “Ken Paxton is so out of step that he has fought to undercut marriage equality and spent time demanding personal medical records for young people who do not even live in Texas, all while becoming the most corrupt politician in America. The more than 2 million Equality Voters in Texas will send him packing.”

Paxton will face off against Democratic hopeful and vocal Trump critic James Talarico in the fall.

Talarico, who won the Democratic primary in April against Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, has been a vocal supporter of LGBTQ rights, citing his ministry work as the source of his support for the community.

The race for Texas’s Senate seat will be decided on Nov. 3.

After being forced to retire, Bree Fram couldn’t stop. Restless even after giving everything she had to make the United States Air Force — and later the Space Force — better in every way she could, Fram quickly turned toward a new mission: public office.

The same tenacity that fueled her rise from Air Force researcher to the highest-ranking openly transgender officer in the United States Armed Forces would eventually carry her onto the campaign trail in Virginia.

Now, after months of campaigning, countless conversations with voters, and abrupt shifts in Virginia’s political landscape, Fram has stepped back from her congressional run.

Fram sat down with the Blade to discuss her decision to step away, what she learned on the campaign trail, and what comes next.

Earlier this month, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan that likely would have created multiple additional Democratic-leaning seats in the U.S. House. The ruling dramatically altered the district Fram had built her campaign around and left little time for candidates to adjust before voting began.

“That decision really was the end of my campaign, that there was not the chance after that ruling, particularly so late in the game, for me to meaningfully pivot back to a different district and have a conversation with voters with just five weeks to go until early voting started,” Fram said. “I do feel that the will of the people has been ignored over a technicality regarding the date of Election Day.”

For Fram, the ruling was not only politically devastating, but personally frustrating after months spent building relationships with voters and shaping a campaign around the district’s needs.

“What was incredibly disappointing about it was that none of the facts about the case had changed from the beginning of the year until when they made the ruling,” she said.

Still, Fram entered the race with a platform centered on affordability, government accountability, and protecting fundamental rights, pledging “to protect our rights, make opportunity affordable, and build a government that works for the people.”

That message focused heavily on affordability — one of the defining political issues of 2026 — and lowering costs for Virginians across ideological, geographic, and generational divides. Fram said voters responded warmly to that vision, even if it ultimately did not lead to an office in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

“The experience on the trail was fantastic. As a first-time candidate, you never know what you’re really getting yourself into, but any chance I had to get out there and talk with people was amazing,” Fram said. “I had the opportunity to change folks’ minds about trans people, about people from Northern Virginia.”

One conversation with a rural Virginia voter especially stayed with her.

“I called someone who runs a rural art shop… and he started talking about Democrats messaging on trans issues being such a problem,” Fram recalled. “And I’m like, do you know that you’re talking to one?”

Throughout the campaign, Fram said she often found herself breaking down preconceived notions about both transgender people and military service. The impact of that visibility became especially clear during another interaction on the trail that still stays with her.

“I had a young person, maybe 20 years old, come up to me. I could tell there was something on their mind,” Fram said. “I preempted them by saying ‘If you were about to ask if I’m trans, the answer is yes.’”

The young person, she said, appeared visibly relieved.

“As we made small talk I could tell there was something else he wanted to ask,” Fram continued. “Eventually they got it out– that they think they might be too.”

The moment quickly turned emotional.

“And then I asked, do you need a hug, they leaned in at first and then just hung on for dear life,” she said. “So what it means to our community to have that kind of representation out there, and to hopefully inspire others, was incredibly important.”

For Fram, those moments became some of the most meaningful parts of the campaign.

“My experience, I think, helped just shape what was our strategy,” she said.

The campaign also came at a uniquely difficult moment in Fram’s life. The Human Rights Campaign honored Fram alongside four other transgender military officials during a Jan. 8 event in Washington commemorating the forced retirement of transgender service members following President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14183, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” which directed the Pentagon to prohibit transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people from serving openly in the military.

Even while navigating the fallout from the discriminatory policy that forced her retirement, Fram launched a campaign rooted heavily in direct voter engagement and personal storytelling.

Her decades in the military, she said, fundamentally shaped how she approached campaigning and leadership.

“As an officer, particularly the more senior you become, you get more and more training on ‘what does it mean to match your ends’ ways and means,’” Fram said. “My end goal was get into office … and constantly reassess what it looks like.”

Fram also said her military background informed her progressive politics more than many voters expected.

“My military background was interesting, because I was running as the progressive candidate,” she said. “People think you were in the military, how can you possibly be the progressive person?”

Her answer, she said, often surprised people.

“Well, where did you think I learned this stuff?” Fram said. “No matter who we were at the same rank, no matter what our job was, we all got paid the same. We all had government-provided health care where we never needed to worry about a medical bill.”

For Fram, and those who talked with her on the trail, military service reinforced the idea that good governance allows people to thrive.

“You actually learn a lot about progressive policies and good governance that lets people be their best self in the military,” she said. “We understand that military officers’ oaths don’t expire when their time in uniform does, and I think that resonated with a lot of people, that veterans can be part of the solution in getting us out of the situation that we are in today.”

Before launching her campaign, Fram built one of the most extensive careers of any openly transgender military officer in U.S. history, serving in senior leadership roles across the Air Force, Space Force, and intelligence community.

Most recently, she served as chief of the Requirements Integration Division at Headquarters, Space Force, after previously leading acquisition policy for the Air Force’s space programs. Earlier in her career, she oversaw advanced weapons and cyberspace programs at the Air Force Research Laboratory, managed billions in foreign military sales and intelligence-related operations, worked on Capitol Hill as a legislative fellow, and directed major engineering and national security programs at the National Reconnaissance Office.

Fram also co-led the Department of the Air Force’s LGBTQ+ Initiatives Team and deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She holds a master’s degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology and is a distinguished graduate of the Naval War College.

Despite stepping away from the race, Fram said she remains optimistic about the future.

“When I look at the big picture of what we did and how we ran a campaign, that is what I’m most proud of,” she said. “It really is the strategy that my team and I were able to craft, the messaging that we were able to share, that was all about connecting our personal story, the story of America to something that says we need a vision of what can be.”

Fram rejected the idea that ending her congressional campaign means ending her public life altogether.

“I can absolutely guarantee that I will not get off the stage. It is just a question of what stage or stages do I jump to,” she said.

She also encouraged LGBTQ people — especially transgender Americans — to stay politically engaged despite increasingly hostile rhetoric and legislation nationwide.

“Just do it,” Fram said. “It is incredibly important to show at every level that people can engage with the political process and make a meaningful difference.”

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, has endorsed a Virginia ballot initiative that would allow the state to redraw its congressional districts this year, ahead of the 2030 Census.

Currently, Virginia’s Redistricting Commission — a legislative body made up of eight legislators and eight citizens, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats — is responsible for redrawing congressional districts every 10 years following the Census. The proposed amendment would temporarily shift that authority to the Virginia General Assembly through 2030, before returning it to the commission in 2031.

Supporters say the push for the amendment comes in response to anti-democratic moves by several Republican-led state legislatures following demands from President Donald Trump, which have resulted in newly gerrymandered congressional maps that advocates argue disenfranchise pro-equality voters.

Under the proposed map in Virginia, Democrats could gain as many as four of the five seats currently held by Republicans in this fall’s midterm elections, when control of the narrowly divided House is up for grabs.

Six states — including Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina on the GOP side — enacted new maps last year at Trump’s behest. The most significant Democratic counter-effort so far has come from California.

HRC President Kelley Robinson issued a statement backing the measure, encouraging Virginia voters who support democracy to vote “yes,” saying it would ensure “the will of the people is heard.”

“Voters should choose their leaders, not the other way around. But anti-equality lawmakers around the country, in service to Donald Trump’s assaults on democracy, are trying to undermine our elections and engineer their preferred outcome in the midterms,” Robinson said. “The American people are ready to take Congress back from the anti-equality, anti-freedom politicians that have been abusing their power to hurt all our communities and bend government to the will of a wannabe king.”

U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, who represents Virginia’s 8th Congressional District that encompasses much of Washington’s suburbs, including Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church, and parts of eastern Fairfax County — has also voiced support for the measure. He has called Trump’s attempts to influence elections ahead of the November midterms a “betrayal of our democracy,” emphasizing that while the fight is ongoing, this effort is a step toward correcting the situation.

“It’s not a done deal by any means,” Beyer said in an op-ed for the Cardinal News. “We have to effectively make the case that even though this seems unfair in Virginia, it’s totally fair for America, for those of us who believe that taking back the House is the most significant thing we can do to stop Donald Trump.”

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is another staunch supporter of the amendment, arguing that it would, through bipartisan means, help counterbalance Trump’s efforts in what remains an uphill battle.

“As early voting begins tomorrow on Virginia’s redistricting amendment, voters should know that Virginia’s approach is different. It is temporary, directly responsive to what other states decide to do, and — most importantly — it preserves Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting process for the future,” the first female governor of the state said in a statement. “I supported the formation of Virginia’s bipartisan redistricting commission in 2020, and that support has not changed. What has changed is what we’re seeing in states across the country — and a president who says he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats before this year’s midterm elections.”

“Virginians have the opportunity to take action in response to this extraordinary moment in history,” she added. “That’s why, as a Virginia voter, I’m voting in favor of this amendment.”

Virginians for Fair Elections, the group responsible for marketing the initiative, has raised nearly $50 million dollars, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan organization focusing on sharing public documents related to financial matters of the state. The ads notably feature former President Barack Obama, who supports the measure and has hailed it as a way to “level the playing field.”

In a recent Politico article, a person close to the White House, granted anonymity, suggested the outlook for Trump’s governing majority is weakening — particularly following the unraveling of the Iran war — underscoring why the administration is pushing Republican-led states to maximize their advantage ahead of the midterms.

“This war in Iran almost cements the fact that we lose the midterms in November — the Senate and House,” the person said.

According to The Economist, Trump holds a 37 percent approval rating, with 56 percent of respondents disapproving of his handling of the presidency.

This is not the first time Virginia has held a special election for a statewide ballot initiative. Most recently, in 1956, voters approved a measure that led to the use of public funds to provide tuition grants for students attending nonsectarian private schools.

Early voting is already underway in the Old Dominion, with Election Day set for April 21.