Meet Sarah McBride, who would become the first transgender member of Congress if elected
The general election is weeks away but the race to represent Delaware in the U.S. House of Representatives has a clear frontrunner: State Sen. Sarah McBride. If she wins, McBride would become the first transgender member of Congress.
After securing the party’s nomination Tuesday, she'll face off against Republican John Whalen in the Nov. 5 general election in the deep blue state that hasn’t had a GOP member in the seat since 2011.
“The first that this campaign represents is something that I’m cognizant of and a responsibility that I feel very deeply but I’m not running to be a member of Congress known for my identity,” McBride said in an interview with USA TODAY. “The best thing I can do for any community I’m a part of is to demonstrate that you can live authentically and be a strong legislator all at the same time.”
About 1.14% of the nation’s adult population, or 3 million Americans, identify as transgender, according to data collected in the US Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey. Of them, a small percentage hold office. For the first time in 2022, more than 1,000 people identifying as a member of the entire LGBTQ+ community held public office across the country, according to the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, a political advocacy group.
“Sarah represents living proof that our country is moving ever forward in accepting LGBTQ people, and especially that trans people are valued and welcome to contribute their considerable talents wherever they want to be, including in the halls of Congress,” GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis told USA TODAY.
Capital connections
McBride already has deep roots in Washington.
She worked for former Delaware Governor Jack Markell, the state’s late Attorney General Beau Biden, and as an intern in the Obama-Biden White House. She described Beau Biden as a “close friend” and “mentor.” Since his passing in 2015, she has developed a friendship with his father President Joe Biden who authored the foreword to her 2018 memoir "Tomorrow Will Be Different."
“My admiration for her sense of perspective and purpose grew when she interned at the White House, becoming the first transgender woman ever to do so,” the president wrote. “I know Beau was proud to have known Sarah. Jill and I share his pride.”
When he announced he was ending his reelection campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, McBride praised his decision, saying he "saved democracy" in 2020 and is doing it again this year by passing the torch to Kamala Harris and a new generation.
“She has been a constant for the Biden family for nearly two decades," Louisa Terrell, former assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, said in a statement to USA TODAY . "From Beau’s first attorney general campaign to the launch of the Biden Foundation, she has given invaluable counsel, and she will continue to be a leader — in partnership with her colleagues on both sides of the aisle — in the fight to ensure that every single American is afforded the dignity of being who they are.”
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'Peacemaker' reputation
McBride was raised in Wilmington in the district she currently represents. She attended American University and majored in political science. Before running for public office, she served as a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest American LGBTQ advocacy group.
State Attorney General Kathy Jennings first met McBride in 2013 when she was fresh out of school and testifying before the state senate in support of the Gender Identity Non-Discrimination Act.
Jennings, who was one of the first people to endorse McBride last summer, said her testimony was a major reason the legislation passed in 2013. She remembers putting her arm around McBride and telling her she was “really going places” after watching her address the state senate.
“It was obvious she was a leader from the very beginning,” Jennings said. “When she became a Delaware senator, she started immediately swinging for the fences . . . but I became convinced that if anyone could do it in the entire legislature, it was Sarah McBride.”
While in office, McBride took on big issues in the state senate, pushing successful legislation to guarantee paid family leave, expand health care affordability, and increase gun safety.
Donyale Hall, one of McBride's Republican opponents who lost the primary to Whalen Tuesday, told USA TODAY she would support measures expanding school choice and blocking transgender students from participating in girls sports.
Jennings said McBride developed a reputation as a “peacemaker” by working across the aisle in the state senate. But Hall disputes that reputation, citing Democrats' majority in both state legislative chambers.
"Senator McBride touts how all this legislation that has been going through the General Assembly has all this bipartisan support," Hall said. "These bills, quite frankly, don't have bipartisan support, because they can pass them all by themselves, and they're not representing the best interests of the people."
Plans for bipartisanship
Still, McBride says she wants to apply her skills as a unifier to a Congress currently experiencing one of the most divided and least productive sessions in history.
Virginia State Sen. Danica Roem, who became the first transgender person elected to any state legislature in 2017, said she has developed a supportive friendship with McBride over the years. Roem applauded McBride's ability to introduce successful bipartisan legislation even as a freshman state senator.
But she warned McBride may face some hostility as well.
"People who go to Washington, D.C. for the objective of being on television and 'driving the conversation' without ever passing legislation of their own will hate her. They'll be terrible to her," Roem said. "People who are there to legislate and pass bills — those will be the people she will gravitate toward... They're going to find out really quickly that she's a trans woman and, not but, and she's a two-term state legislator who passed a lot of bills by working across the aisle and getting things done."
McBride pointed to her record in Delaware as proof of her ability to listen and work with Republicans, but whether she will be able to bridge partisan divides in a deeply polarized US House of Representatives remains to be seen.
McBride continues to have a friend in Roem, who described a time when she called McBride to express her support for her campaign.
"I told her, 'I did my historic first.' I told her, 'This is your time,' " Roem said.
Rachel Barber is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY, focusing on politics and education. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, as @rachelbarber_
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Delaware state senator could be first trans member of US Congress