We didn’t elect our first female president in 2024, but the good news is that we did make one historic gain. Incoming Delaware representative Sarah McBride will be the United States’ first transgender member of Congress when she is sworn in in January.
“The results are a testament to Delawareans who have demonstrated that they are judging candidates based on their ideas and not their identities,” McBride told People after her historic win. “We do have a place in our democracy and the heart of this nation is big enough to love all of us as long as we continue to work for it, as long as we continue to step up and as long as we continue to fight for it.”
But now the rest of America wants to know: Who is this political trailblazer?
She was a political advocate
Before McBride was elected to the Delaware State Senate in 2021, McBride was a longtime advocate for human rights and nondiscrimination legislation, according to her official website. She also served in the Obama White House, and was the national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign.
She is a widow
McBride married LGBTQ+ rights activist Andrew Cray in 2014, but tragically he died just four days later of oral cancer, per People. “My work in the legislature has been a love letter to Andy in so many ways. I carry him with me every single day, both in those lessons that I’ve learned from him, but also in the values and policies that I fight for as a legislator,” McBride told the outlet.
Sarah McBride was also a friend of Beau Biden
After McBride won her primary race in September, she received a personal call from President Joe Biden to congratulate her on behalf of his late son Beau, with whom she maintained a friendship until his death in 2015. “I called her, and I said, ‘Sarah,’ I said, ‘Beau’s looking down from heaven, congratulating you,” Biden said, per The Hill.
McBride told The Hill, “It just filled my heart with so much love and joy to not only hear from the president, but through him, to think about what this moment would have meant for my friend Beau, who I think about every single day. When I’m on the campaign trail, I often ask myself, ‘What would Beau do,’ and the answer is always right.”
