Georgia elects its first out LGBTQ+ member of Congress — for just four months

Everton Blair, a Black gay Democrat who told The Advocate earlier this year that his party needed leaders willing to fight harder against President Donald Trump, is headed to Congress after pulling off an upset in a Georgia special election Tuesday.

Blair defeated Marcye Scott, the daughter of the late Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott, 53 percent to 47 percent in the runoff for Georgia’s 13th Congressional District, according to unofficial results. Scott had entered the runoff with an apparent advantage after taking 46 percent of the vote in July’s first round, compared with 37 percent for Blair, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The victory makes Blair Georgia’s first out LGBTQ+ person elected to Congress and the first out gay Black person elected to Congress from a Southern state. Nationally, he is only the third out gay Black person elected to Congress, following New York Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones in 2020. It also sends to Washington a 34-year-old former teacher and local school board leader who had originally entered the race arguing that the district needed a generational change from the man whose seat he will now briefly occupy.

Related: Georgia education champion could be first Black out gay man to represent South in Congress

Blair is expected to be sworn in when the House returns in September and will serve only through the end of David Scott’s term in January. But his abbreviated tenure could arrive at an unusually consequential moment as Republicans are operating with a razor-thin House majority, meaning one additional Democratic vote can matter on legislation that otherwise might come down to a handful of members.

About 20,000 of the district’s roughly 539,000 active voters cast ballots Tuesday, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Blair launched his campaign as a challenge to David Scott, a 12-term incumbent whom Blair criticized for prolonged absences from Congress and what he saw as inadequate representation of the suburban Atlanta district. Scott died April 22 at age 80, hours after casting votes on the House floor. The congressman’s death transformed an insurgent primary campaign into a special election and ultimately put Blair opposite Scott’s daughter.

Marcye Scott asked voters to let her finish her father’s work. Blair asked them to choose someone already tested in elected office and ready to confront D.C. on different terms. On Tuesday, voters chose Blair.

When The Advocate interviewed Blair in February, months before the race took its unexpected turn, he was already presenting his candidacy as something more than a bid to make LGBTQ+ history.

“We need a stronger set of Democrats who are willing to fight for their communities,” Blair said at the time.

That argument has only become more relevant as Trump’s second administration has targeted LGBTQ+ people across the federal government, military, healthcare and education.

Blair told The Advocate that he was frustrated with Democratic leaders’ response to Trump and wanted elected officials to make more aggressive use of their power to obstruct the administration. Among other things, he advocated abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and pursuing impeachment against administration officials he believes have abused their authority.

“We’ve got to put sand in the gears,” Blair said.

A former Atlanta public school math teacher, Blair was 26 when he was elected to the Gwinnett County Board of Education in 2018, becoming the board’s youngest-ever member and its first person of color. He later became chair of the board that oversees Georgia’s largest school system and helped lead it through the COVID-19 pandemic and a superintendent transition.

Blair publicly came out as gay after winning that election. He told The Advocate that doing so helped create space for LGBTQ+ students and educators to be open about themselves.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College, a master’s degree from Stanford University and a doctorate in education leadership from Harvard. Before joining the school board, he also served as a policy fellow with President Barack Obama’s White House Initiative on Educational Excellence.

State Rep. Jasmine Clark defeated Blair and other candidates in the regular Democratic primary in May. She will face Republican Jonathan Chavez in November in a district where Democrats have an overwhelming advantage.