Sarah McBride will win Delaware House seat, becoming the first transgender person in the US Congress, CNN projects

() – Delaware state senator Sarah McBride will win her state’s seat in the US House of Representatives, becoming the first transgender person in Congress, projects.

The seat became vacant when outgoing Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester opted to run for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat.

Despite running in a reliably Democratic state, McBride emphasized his work leading a bipartisan push to pass paid family and medical leave in the state. He also highlighted the support of unions and their work to increase the state minimum wage. While he didn’t lean into the historic nature of his candidacy, he alluded to a broader issue of respect — specifically, that everyone deserves a member of Congress who respects them and their families.

The incoming congresswoman is a close ally of President Joe Biden and has been credited with helping shape Biden’s view on LGBT issues. McBride entered Biden’s circle in 2006, when he worked for the late Beau Biden’s attorney general campaign. Beau Biden was also a strong supporter of the 2013 transgender protections legislation that McBride championed in Delaware.

The president wrote the foreword to McBride’s 2018 memoir, “Tomorrow Will Be Different.” The book exposes McBride’s experiences as a transgender rights activist and her personal story, including meeting her late husband Andrew Cray, whom she met at an LGBT pride event at the White House in 2012. Cray, a transgender man and fellow activist, died of cancer in 2014, just days after they married.

McBride, a former spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT rights advocacy group, has made history throughout her public life. In 2012, as a senior and student body president at American University, she made national news when she announced that she was transgender in an op-ed in the school newspaper.

At the time, McBride wrote about her concerns that her gender identity would not be compatible with her goals of running for office.

“I now know that my dreams and my identity are mutually exclusive only if I don’t try,” he wrote.

Four years later, McBride became the first transgender person to address a national party convention, when she spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

And in 2020, McBride became the first transgender person elected to serve in a state Senate, when she was chosen to represent a seat in northern Delaware.