Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride will become the first openly transgender person to be elected to Congress, ABC News projects.
She will represent Delaware’s sole congressional district in the House of Representatives after more than three years in the state Senate, which also marked a historic first for trans representation in government.
Previously, McBride was the national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign and had served in the offices of former Gov. Jack Markell and the late Attorney General Beau Biden and interned in the Obama-Biden White House.
Sarah McBride, Democratic candidate for Delaware’s at-large congressional district, speaks during an election night watch party, Nov. 5, 2024, in Wilmington, Del.
Pamela Smith/AP
McBride has emphasized that she wasn’t running to make history as the first transgender member of Congress: “My day-to-day focus is not explaining gender identity to people,” she said in a past ABC News interview. “My day-to-day focus is delivering tangible results for the constituents that I serve.”
She has said her focus is on policy, rattling off a list of plans concerning affordable health care, affordable housing and child care, reproductive rights and more.
Her win comes amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in states across the country and rising rhetoric targeting the transgender community. McBride is no stranger to the debate, saying she’s used to working with people who have voted against LGBTQ rights and hold positions that “I might find personally hurtful” in the Delaware General Assembly.
Sarah McBride, Democrat running for Delaware’s Congressional seat, speaks during an education roundtable at her campaign office in Wilmington, July 27, 2024.
Bill Clark/Getty Images, FILE
McBride entered the race for Congress with endorsements from high-ranking Delaware lawmakers like Sens. Chris Coons and Tom Carper, support from LGBTQ advocacy groups like the HRC and her relationships with the Biden family. President Joe Biden wrote the foreword to her 2018 memoir, and she has called his late son, Beau, one of her mentors.
McBride’s seat was held by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who also endorsed McBride, who had announced that she is running for the U.S. Senate to fill the seat held by the retiring Carper.
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