Sarah McBride Makes History as First Transgender Member of Congress

By Orion Rummler
Originally published by The 19th

WILMINGTON — Sarah McBride won Delaware’s at-large U.S. House seat on Tuesday, Decision Desk HQ projects. She campaigned on expanding Delawareans’ access to health care — an effort on which she has focused her career in the state’s 1st Senate district. In January, McBride will be sworn in as the first out transgender member of Congress. 

McBride’s ascension marks yet another milestone for the millennial state legislator. As the country’s first out transgender state senator, the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention and the first out trans woman to intern at the White House, McBride has repeatedly broken barriers in politics and proven that voters are ready to elect transgender candidates into elected office.  

Although McBride didn’t run for Congress to make history, the significance of her campaign for transgender Americans during a time of intense political backlash has propelled a national following behind her. That includes Daisy Hollman and Jimmy Fitzpatrick, two Californians who knocked on hundreds of doors for McBride across Delaware the week before Election Day. 

“Her campaign reflects on the campaigns of all other trans people coming after her,” said Fitzpatrick, a trans man. To Hollman, a trans woman, McBride’s campaign is a reminder that trans people can overcome the harmful legislation and vitriolic political rhetoric that has increased over the past four years. The couple stood outside the episcopal church where McBride cast her vote on Tuesday, with a crowd of other supporters.

This election for Delaware’s seat in the House of Representatives had no incumbent for the first time in years, as U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester stepped down to run for Delaware’s open Senate seat.McBride was projected to be the winner early on; she had robust fundraising and amassed key endorsements from state political leaders, including Blunt Rochester. Democrats have held Delaware’s at-large House seat for over a decade. 

On the campaign trail, McBride called for increased federal investments to support nurses, primary care physicians and independent health care clinics in Delaware. She touted her accomplishments as a state senator, including the passage of a statewide paid family and medical leave insurance program and a recently signed law expected to generate more than $100 million in new Medicaid funding for Delaware. 

She faced a Republican opponent who endorsed transphobic policies. John Whalen III, a retired police officer, staked his campaign on cutting federal spending and restricting immigration. He also publicly endorsed Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump administration. The plan equates the act of being transgender — or “transgender ideology” — to pornography. 

Throughout her campaign, McBride appealed to Delawareans on local policy issues and also urged them to reject Project 2025, joining other Democrats in local and state races who have used the plan to attack their Republican opponents. On October 24, at a small town hall of supporters and voters in Dover, McBride turned the conversation to Project 2025 after outlining her pledges to improve Delawareans’ health care. 

“I think many of us are here right now because we understand what is at stake in this coming election. We understand what’s at risk. How many of you have heard of Project 2025? Raise your hands,” she said. “Two days after our primary, our Republican opponent stood up in our now one and only debate and explicitly endorsed Project 2025, calling it a plan to restore our Republic. So the stakes are high, not just nationally.” 

McBride used the moment to call on voters to reject “MAGA extremists” on the ballot across Delaware. 
“At the federal level, instead of protecting Social Security and Medicare, they will gut them. Instead of improving our public schools and expanding access to child care, they will defund them. Instead of protecting access to abortion care, they will ban it. And instead of uniting this country, they will continue to seek to divide us,” she said.