Dozens of LGBTQ+ candidates just got a major boost for 2026

The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund on Monday endorsed 35 candidates across 19 states, expanding its push to build LGBTQ+ political power as rights face renewed challenges in the 2026 election cycle.

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At a glance, the list reads like a catalog of local and state races, city councils, county commissions, statehouses, and a mayoral bid in Reno. But taken together, it sketches a deliberate effort to seed LGBTQ+ representation throughout the machinery of the American government at a moment when that presence is being tested and, in some places, rolled back.

The March endorsements bring the group’s total for the 2026 cycle to 163 candidates nationwide, an expanding bench that reflects years of investment in building a pipeline from local office to national influence.

That long-game approach has taken on new urgency. Evan Low, in a recent interview with The Advocate, described the coming elections as a stress test for LGBTQ+ political power, unfolding amid a climate of fear, distortion, and an unprecedented wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

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He has been making that case for months. In December, at the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference, where former President Joe Biden was honored for what organizers called his administration’s “historic leadership” on LGBTQ+ equality, Low described the moment as one of “urgency and hope,” even as the community faces “laser-focused” efforts to “legislate us out of existence.”

In Connecticut, State Treasurer Erick Russell, the first out gay Black man elected to statewide office in the United States, is seeking to continue a tenure the Victory Fund describes as steady and fiscally grounded. In Illinois, Precious Brady-Davis, the first Black out trans woman elected to public office in Cook County history, is running for reelection as a commissioner on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago after building a profile around environmental policy and public health.

Elsewhere, the races are more local, but no less telling. Nevadan Devon Reese, a Reno city councilmember, is running for mayor on a platform rooted in downtown revitalization, community policing, and addressing the high cost of living. In North Carolina, State Rep. Deb Butler remains a fixture in legislative fights over equality measures. And in Wisconsin, Madison Common Councilmember Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford is running for the State Assembly's 76th District, a race that, if she wins, would make her the first transgender person elected to the Wisconsin Legislature.

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The geography is as notable as the candidates. The slate stretches across states where LGBTQ+ rights are broadly protected and those where they are actively contested, with Texas and Tennessee alongside California and New York.

To earn the Victory Fund’s endorsement, candidates must be out as LGBTQ+, support equality and bodily autonomy, and demonstrate a viable path to victory. Founded in 1991, the Victory Fund has helped elect thousands of LGBTQ+ candidates. That success has reshaped American politics in ways that now feel almost taken for granted.

And yet, as Low suggested in both his interview and at the December gathering, the question facing 2026 is not simply how many candidates run, but whether the political conditions that made their rise possible are beginning to erode.