Republican George Santos is the winner in the race for New York’s 3rd Congressional District, beating Democrat Robert Zimmerman and flipping the seat from blue to red, NBC News projected. The contest marked the first time two openly gay congressional candidates had gone head to head in a general election.
With 89% of precincts reporting Wednesday morning, Santos had 54.2%, while Zimmerman had 45.8%.
Santos will succeed Democrat Tom Suozzi, who left Congress last year in an unsuccessful bid for governor.
He will also become the first openly LGBTQ non-incumbent Republican elected to Congress. All 11 current LGBTQ members of Congress — two senators and nine representatives — are Democrats.
Two former GOP House members — Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin and Jim Kolbe of Arizona — won re-election after they came out (or, in Gunderson’s case, having been outed). Former Republican Reps. Mark Foley of Florida and Aaron Schock of Illinois came out as gay after they resigned from the House.
Santos’ projected win comes as LGBTQ issues have increasingly become a wedge issue in the nation’s culture wars.
Republican legislators have filed a record 346 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Many of the bills aim to restrict gender-affirming care for trans minors, prohibit trans girls and women from competing on girls’ sports teams in school and bar the instruction of topics relating to sexual orientation or gender identity at school. This year alone, at least 12 bills restricting transgender rights have been signed into law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
In a September interview, Santos said he sees no contradiction between his sexual orientation and his party’s politics.
“As a lifelong Republican, I have never experienced discrimination in the Republican Party,” he said at the time. “I am an openly gay candidate. I am not shy.”
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