Republican George Santos is the winner within the race for New York’s third Congressional District, beating Democrat Robert Zimmerman and flipping the seat from blue to pink, NBC Information projected. The competition marked the primary time two overtly homosexual congressional candidates had gone face to face in a normal election.
With 89% of precincts reporting Wednesday morning, Santos had 54.2%, whereas Zimmerman had 45.8%.
Santos will succeed Democrat Tom Suozzi, who left Congress final yr in an unsuccessful bid for governor.
He will even develop into the primary overtly LGBTQ non-incumbent Republican elected to Congress. All 11 present LGBTQ members of Congress — two senators and 9 representatives — are Democrats.
Two former GOP Home members — Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin and Jim Kolbe of Arizona — received re-election after they got here out (or, in Gunderson’s case, having been outed). Former Republican Reps. Mark Foley of Florida and Aaron Schock of Illinois got here out as homosexual after they resigned from the Home.
Santos’ projected win comes as LGBTQ points have more and more develop into a wedge concern within the nation’s tradition wars.
Republican legislators have filed a file 346 anti-LGBTQ payments in state legislatures this yr, in accordance with the Human Rights Marketing campaign. Most of the payments goal to limit gender-affirming look after trans minors, prohibit trans women and girls from competing on ladies’ sports activities groups at school and bar the instruction of subjects referring to sexual orientation or gender identification in school. This yr alone, at the very least 12 payments limiting transgender rights have been signed into regulation, in accordance with the American Civil Liberties Union.
In a September interview, Santos mentioned he sees no contradiction between his sexual orientation and his celebration’s politics.
“As a lifelong Republican, I’ve by no means skilled discrimination within the Republican Social gathering,” he mentioned on the time. “I’m an overtly homosexual candidate. I’m not shy.”
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