While majority of the LGBTQ community celebrated the defeat of Donald Trump, there were also several lesbian electoral victories in the recent 2020 elections.
These winners– like Charmaine McGuffey and Angie Craig– were among the many LGBTQ candidates that ran during the past week’s elections.
Lesbian electoral victories: Charmaine McGuffey
Among the big winners was Charmaine McGuffey, a former sheriff’s office employee in Hamilton County, Ohio, who was fired in 2017 because some didn’t like her for being openly gay and a whistleblower.
McGuffey had worked for more than three decades in the said sheriff’s office and rose up in position until she was placed in charge of the jail in 2013.
She ran for office against Jim Neil, the local Sheriff who fired her, and beat him in the Democratic primary. She then run and won against her Republican opponent, Bruce Hoffbauer, in the general election.
She won 52 percent of the vote, becoming the county’s first female sheriff.
Lesbian electoral victories: Angie Craig
Another big winner was Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota, who won her reelection bid in the Second Congressional District after her Republican opponent Tyler Kistner conceded.
Craig won with 48.2 percent of the vote against Kistner and a third party candidate, Adam Weeks. Before he died, Weeks was cited by a witness to have claimed that he had been hired to siphon off votes from Craig.
In a Facebook Live post, Craig said, “I am so thrilled to announce that I will be back to represent the Second District.”
Craig was first elected to office in 2018 when she defeated anti-LGBTQ Republican incumbent Jason Lewis.
Lesbian electoral victories across the states
For the 2020 general elections, there were 1,006 LGBTQ candidates running, or a 41 percent increase from the 2018 midterms, according to the LGBT Victory Fund.
However, while an estimated five percent of the US population identifies as LGBTQ, only around 0.17 percent of elected officials across all levels of the government identify as LGBTQ.
Among other winners were Kim Jackson, an out lesbian and Episcopal priest, who will represent District 41 as the first out member of Georgia’s State Senate.
Other winners include Toni Atkins for District 51 and Sabrina Cervantes of the District 60 of the California State Assembly. Likewise, Kelly Cassidy of the District 14 of the Illinois State House won in her campaign.
Meanwhile, Sharice Davids of the Kansas District 3 of the US House of Representatives, and Jo Comerford of the Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester District of the Massachusetts State Senate also scored victories.