There was actually some good news coming out of last November’s election.
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Yes, Donald Trump is in office as president, already doing much damage to the LGBTQ+ community and others, and Republicans have a majority in both chambers of Congress. But there are more out LGBTQ+ people in elected office than ever, and they’re fighting for equality.
At least 495 LGBTQ+ candidates won their races — nearly half of the 1,017 known LGBTQ+ candidates, according to the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which backs out, qualified, and viable candidates for office. There’s been a net gain of 107 out officials, for a total of at least 1,389.
“Our candidates had a really great election last November,” Victory Fund President and CEO Annise Parker tells The Advocate. “Every year we have more out officials.”
“This level of representation continues to show we’re here, we’re not going away, and we deserve a voice in government,” adds Sean Meloy, vice president of political programs for Victory Fund.
What offices did LGBTQ+ people win?
The new officeholders include members of school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and Congress. The U.S. Senate is down to one LGBTQ+ member — Democrat Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, who was elected to a third term — after Laphonza Butler, a California Democrat, and Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat turned independent from Arizona, decided not to seek reelection. Butler had been appointed to fill out the late Dianne Feinstein’s term, and it was understood she would not run for a full term.
However, “we picked up three amazing new women in the House,” Parker says. They are Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first out transgender member of Congress; Emily Randall of Washington State, the first LGBTQ+ Latina in the body; and Julie Johnson of Texas, the first LGBTQ+ member of Congress from the South. All are Democrats.
That means the House has 12 out LGBTQ+ members, the most ever. These new members join reelected U.S. Reps. Robert Garcia and Mark Takano of California, Eric Sorensen of Illinois, Sharice Davids of Kansas, Angie Craig of Minnesota, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire, Ritchie Torres of New York, Becca Balint ofVermont, and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin — again, all Dems.
At the state level, Oregon elected its first LGBTQ+ treasurer, Elizabeth Steiner, a lesbian and a Democrat. Washington State elected its first statewide LGBTQ+ official, Dave Upthegrove, a gay man, as commissioner of public lands.
Seventy percent of Victory Fund’s endorsed candidates won their races, including at least 25 school board members and 168 state legislators. “We made some big gains in state legislatures,” Meloy notes. “It’s important to have LGBTQ voices there,” as those legislatures will be making decisions about bodily autonomy, he adds.
Eleven states will have increased LGBTQ+ state legislative representation, with a net gain of 21 new LGBTQ+ legislators in 2025. Wisconsin added seven new LGBTQ+ state representatives, and Iowa, Hawaii, and Missouri elected their first trans or nonbinary state lawmakers: Aime Wichtendahl, Kim Coco Iwamoto, and Wick Thomas, respectively.
What will all these officials be doing? “The answer is their job,” Parker says. “Their job is to represent their constituents.”
“But as they do that, they’ll bring their lived experience with them,” she says. “Sometimes that will shape their policy. In the long run it will change hearts and minds.”
“People want good government at the local level, and apparently they want reality TV at the presidential level,” Parker adds.
Are LGBTQ+ candidates getting ready for the 2026 midterm elections yet?
LGBTQ+ people are already coming forth as candidates in the 2026 midterm election, and some are looking at this year, as some school boards, cities, and states hold elections in odd-numbered years, Meloy says.
The number of out office-seekers has been increasing for years. “2018 saw a huge surge in nontraditional candidates,” Parker says. “The first Trump administration was the best recruiting tool for LGBT candidates.” With him back in the White House, more out candidates will come forward, she and Meloy predict. “We expect to have a busy couple years,” Parker says.
“It’s an exciting time,” Meloy says. “It’s also a scary time, and folks are navigating that.”
While Victory Fund supports mostly Democrats, as most out candidates are Dems and most Republicans are hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, Parker says the group is open to supporting Republicans — it’s endorsed some in the past — as long as they are willing to advocate for LGBTQ+ equality and bodily autonomy.
But “every year there are fewer out Republican officials — they got primaried,” she says. “The primaries have gotten extremely toxic for gay Republicans.”
However, the number of out Democratic candidates continues to grow — along with nonpartisan ones, as some local offices are nonpartisan. More LGBTQ+ people need to be elected to assure proportional representation, though, Parker says: “We still need to elect well over 30,000 more people who are out.”
Victory Fund will continue to work on that. “We need LGBTQ representation across the board,” Meloy says. “It’s important to be in the room to show people we exist.” Parker notes that even in very small towns, out candidates with the right message can win.
“We need to make sure we’re able to support everyone who’s currently in office,” Meloy says. “But we’re continuing to charge ahead with anyone who’s willing and able to run for office and confront this bigotry [from the White House and elsewhere] head on.”
“We need to talk about the gains LGBTQ people have made — it’s not something for people to run away from,” he adds. “If we cede any ground, they’re going to come for trans people, they’re going to come for lesbian and gay people — we have to be vigilant.”