Delaware state Senator Sarah McBride is setting out to make history as the first transgender person to be elected to Congress.
On Monday, McBride, who became the nation's first openly transgender state senator in 2020, launched her campaign to fill the vacancy left by Democratic Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is leaving the state's only House seat to run for the Senate.
McBride is not the only transgender politician to run for Congress, but she could be the first with a real shot at electoral victory. She was the first openly trans woman to intern at the White House in 2012 during the Obama administration and was also the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016. When she was elected state senator, she became the highest-elected transgender politician in the country.
Her campaign announcement comes at a time when transgender rights have become a focal point in the country's culture wars.
In recent years, GOP lawmakers have introduced a flurry of anti-trans legislation, including bans on transgender athletes, gender-affirming care and pronoun usage, at both the state and federal levels. Brands like Bud Light have faced conservative boycotts over their partnerships with transgender influencers. And while Democrats have staunchly opposed these efforts, a Gallup poll released earlier this month shows a national decline in support for gender identity in sports.
Philip Jones, a political scientist focused on LGBTQ+ politics, told Newsweek his research has shown that voters are typically less likely to support transgender candidates, who he said are often stereotyped as more liberal than a cisgender candidate who is otherwise similar. But because of Delaware's unique race, McBride's transgender identity may give her a boost.
Delaware, a reliably Democratic state, has just one House seat, which means the race is statewide and will bring an extremely competitive primary.
"Every prominent Democrat in the state is going to be thinking about running," Jones said.
So, McBride will be seeking the same voters that widely supported Democrats like Rochester, Senators Chris Coons and Tom Carper, Governor John Carney and President Joe Biden.
Jones said that because his research has found that very liberal voters buck the typical trend and favor transgender candidates, this could be good news for McBride in solid-blue Delaware. He added that because this research was based on hypothetical transgender candidates and because McBride has already established herself in the state, "she'll be a strong candidate."
A 2018 survey from the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication found that state residents strongly support transgender rights. Three in four respondents said they favored laws that protect transgender students.
"Considering this and Sarah McBride's solid reputation as a first-term senator, I do believe she has a strong shot at winning the seat in the U.S. House," Nancy Karibjanian, the director of the Center for Political Communication, told Newsweek. "The only way I see it getting messy is should outside groups try to exert influence."
McBride could also benefit from her long-standing ties with the state's most famous political family. Not only did she intern at the White House while Biden was vice president, but he also wrote the forward to her memoir. And she was a staffer on the late Beau Biden's campaigns for state attorney general.
While McBride has said she's not running for Congress to be the first transgender member, she believes there's been a "false sense of security" about transgender rights in the U.S.
"There was a sense that if we simply worked for it, change was inevitable. But the reality is that inevitably is the exception in our nation's history," McBride told news outlet The 19th about her candidacy.
