A Republican-backed group spent more than $950,000 to promote a Black lesbian prosecutors bid for the Democratic nomination to be North Carolina’s next attorney general. One of three lesbians in the U.S. Senate announced this week she was leaving the job “at the end of the year” rather than run for re-election. And a Log Cabin Republicans leader said he expects there could be “six or seven” gay Republicans from California as Trump delegates to the party’s presidential nominating convention in Wisconsin in July.
The gay mayor of California’s second largest city — San Diego — breezed through Super Tuesday’s primary ballot.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria topped a field of five candidates for the city’s top office. At deadline Wednesday morning, the San Diego elections office showed Todd with 50.88 percent of the vote. He will face off in November against the second largest vote-getter, police officer Larry Turner, with 24.3 percent. Although the city’s race is non-partisan, Gloria is a Democrat and Turner, an Independent. The big issue in the campaign has been what to do with the city’s large population living on the streets. A supporter of Gloria’s re-election campaign filed a lawsuit, challenging Turner’s residency requirement to run for office. That judge overseeing that case has put off a decision until after the primary.
Gay State Assemblyman Evan Low appears to be trailing by 2.1 points in his bid to be on the ballot in November for California’s 16th Congressional District, an open seat representing the San Jose and environs.
Gay Republican Alex Balekian, a practicing physician, appears to have won a slot on the November ballot, seeking to represent California’s Congressional District 30, in the Los Angeles region, including West Hollywood. Gay Democrat Will Rollins will be on the ballot against a Republican incumbent he lost to two years ago.
Gay Democrat Will Rollins won enough votes Tuesday to face-off once again against incumbent Republican Ken Calvert for Congressional District 40’s seat, representing the Coachella Valley.
A lesbian Democrat came out well ahead in a field of 10 candidates seeking to represent Texas Congressional District 32. But with 50.1 percent of the vote, State Rep. Julie Johnson appear to have just barely squeaked through without the need for a run-off.
The Victory Fund, the national LGBTQ group that promotes openly LGBTQ candidates for office, had more than 50 LGBTQ candidates on the ballot in Tuesday’s primary –32 in California, 13 in Texas, four in North Carolina, two each in Tennessee and Vermont, and one each in Colorado and Arkansas.
In Texas, bisexual candidate Molly Cook appears to have forced a run-off for a state senate seat in the Houston area. Cook won 20 percent of the vote to the frontrunner’s 39 percent.
In one of the more bizarre developments, the News & Observer daily newspaper of Raleigh reported Saturday that a Republican-funded super PAC spent almost $1 million in independent expenditures promoting Black queer attorney general candidate Satana Deberry. Deberry came in second out of three candidates in the Democratic primary for the North Carolina Attorney General position. Deberry earned 33 percent of the Democratic votes Tuesday night, falling too far behind frontrunner U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson with 55 percent.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (Indep-Ariz) announced this week that she will not seek re-election this year. Sinema, who identifies as bisexual, won election as a Democrat. But she turned Independent two years ago and appeared to be struggling for early support ahead of Arizona’s U.S. Senate race this year. Sinema cited rancor in Congress for her departure: “Because I choose civility, understanding, listening, working together to get stuff done,” said Sinema, in a statement posted on X (aka Twitter) “I will leave the Senate at the end of this year.”
U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), who was appointed to fill out the term of the late Senator Dianne Feinstein when Feinstein died in October, will leave that temporary appointment when California elects its new senator in November. U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) will run for re-election in November, against a Republican candidate to be chose in August.
And, Charles Moran, president of the national gay Republican group Log Cabin Republicans, predicted there would be “six to seven” openly gay delegates from California alone, supporting Trump this July at the Republican National Convention. Moran said the “overwhelming majority” of Log Cabin members –in “informal polling”—are endorsing Trump for president.