Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride wins U.S. House seat, becoming first openly transgender member of Congress

Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride made history Tuesday night, winning the race for Delaware’s only congressional district. She will be the first openly transgender member of Congress and is already the nation’s highest-ranking openly transgender elected official.

McBride, 33, defeated Republican John Whalen III, a former police officer and construction company owner.

McBride thanked voters on Tuesday evening via a post on Instagram, saying that the people of Delaware voted according to their values.

“Delaware has sent the message loud and clear,” she wrote, “that we must be a country that protects reproductive freedom, that guarantees paid leave and affordable child care for all our families, that ensures that housing and health care are available to everyone and that this is a democracy that is big enough for all of us.”

McBride said earlier this year that diversity in Congress is important, but she didn’t run for the U.S. House on her identity. Instead, by proving to be an effective legislator, she hopes to inspire acceptance through what she called the “power of proximity.”

“Once you respect someone as a really, really hardworking legislator, it’s hard not to then see them as a person; it’s hard not to see other people like them as people,” she said in an interview.

But her success comes at a time when former President Donald Trump and other GOP candidates used transgender people as a line of attack in a heated campaign season and reportedly spent millions of dollars doing so. Trump consistently brings up transgender athletes at his rallies, riling up the crowd about the topic. He has vowed to remove LGBTQ protections if elected, and his ads frequently fearmonger about gender-affirming care, linking the practice to undocumented immigrants.

An ad attacking Vice President Kamala Harris for being “for they/them” featured an image of Assistant U.S. Secretary of Health Rachel Levine — the former Pennsylvania physician general and health secretary and first openly transgender person confirmed by the Senate to a federal position.

McBride said in the June interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer that “the MAGA movement’s obsession with trans people” is part of a “manufactured culture war” that’s meant to serve as a distraction from problems Trump doesn’t have solutions for.

“As people begin to understand the humanity of the people impacted by a particular political debate, the clock ends up running out on anti-equality politicians’ ability to target and scapegoat,” McBride said in the interview. “We saw it with gay people and marriage equality … and I think the same will be true for transgender people. But that only comes when there’s full representation.”

McBride will be replacing U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D., Del.), who made history herself when she was elected in 2016, becoming the first woman and first African American elected to Congress from Delaware.

On Tuesday, Rochester was elected Delaware’s first Black female senator.

Supporters said McBride’s election was a win both for LGBTQ representation and for Delaware voters.

“Her service is a landmark achievement on the march toward equality,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for which McBride once served as press secretary. “This historic victory reflects not only increasing acceptance of transgender people in our society, ushered in by the courage of visible leaders like Sarah, but also her dogged work in demonstrating that she is an effective lawmaker who will deliver real results.”

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