Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride has been elected to the U.S. Home and can grow to be the first overtly transgender particular person to serve in Congress.
McBride simply defeated Republican John Whalen IIII on Tuesday within the race for Delaware’s lone Home seat. Whalen is a retired building firm proprietor and former state trooper who ran a shoestring marketing campaign in his first bid for public workplace.
McBride, in the meantime, has established a nationwide profile as an LGBTQ activist and raised greater than $3 million in marketing campaign contributions from across the nation. She achieved nationwide recognition on the 2016 Democratic Nationwide Conference as the primary overtly transgender particular person to handle a significant celebration conference in the USA.
After scoring a straightforward Democrat main win in September, McBride mentioned she was not working for Congress to make historical past, however as an alternative “to make historic progress for Delawareans.”
As a state senator, McBride has earned a popularity for engaged on well being care points, together with efficiently sponsoring laws to create a statewide paid household and medical depart insurance coverage program. McBride additionally sponsored laws to handle Medicaid reimbursement charges for residence well being care providers and broaden entry to dental take care of low-income Delawareans. One other invoice she sponsored imposed a 3.58% tax on web income of Delaware’s hospitals as a solution to leverage extra federal Medicaid funds. All these measures had been enacted into legislation.
Democrats have held Delaware’s U.S. Home seat since 2010. The seat was left open final yr after Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester opted to run for the U.S. Senate spot being vacated by fellow Democrat Tom Carper.
