Four days ago we wrote about the $183 million Republicans spent on anti-trans TV ads ahead of the US midterms. On Tuesday night, voters answered.

The headline: Chris Pappas is going to the US Senate, the first openly gay man ever elected to it. But he wasn’t alone. Here’s the night, in order of how much it matters to LGBTQ+ people.

A first in the Senate

Democrat Chris Pappas beat former Republican senator John E. Sununu in New Hampshire, according to the AP. He takes the open seat being vacated by three-term Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.

Pappas, 46, grew up working in his family’s restaurant in Manchester and has represented New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District in the House since 2019, PBS NewsHour reports. Sununu conceded on Tuesday night. “This has been an incredible campaign, but it is not our night,” he told supporters, the Boston Globe reports.

Some context: the Senate has had out LGBTQ+ members before. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin became the first out lesbian elected to it in 2012. But no openly gay man had ever won a Senate seat until now.

The trans and nonbinary wins

  • Sarah McBride (Delaware), the first out transgender member of Congress, won re-election as the state’s only member of the US House.
  • Bentley Hudgins won Georgia’s House District 90, becoming the state’s first out transgender and nonbinary state lawmaker, The Advocate reports.
  • Zooey Zephyr, Montana’s first out trans state legislator, won again in House District 95.
  • DeShanna Neal won re-election in Delaware’s House District 13. The Advocate describes Neal as Delaware’s first-ever nonbinary elected official.

For a community that spent the autumn hearing itself described in attack ads, that’s a meaningful list.

More LGBTQ+ firsts in Congress

The Advocate’s running list of winners includes:

  • JD Ford (Indiana), the first out gay person elected to Congress from Indiana.
  • JoAnna Mendoza (Arizona), a queer Marine veteran who flipped her House seat.
  • Marni von Wilpert (California), an out bisexual Democrat who won the 48th District, the seat long held by Republican Darrell Issa.
  • Re-elected: Sharice Davids (Kansas), Ritchie Torres (New York), Mark Pocan (Wisconsin), Mark Takano and Robert Garcia (California), Eric Sorensen (Illinois), Emily Randall (Washington) and Jeremy Moss (Michigan).

Two out lesbian governors won second terms too: Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon.

The Advocate reports Democrats are projected to control both the House and the Senate. “LGBTQ+ candidates helped build that majority,” it writes.

Virginia writes marriage equality into its constitution

Same-sex couples have married in Virginia since 2014. But the state’s 2006 constitutional ban was still on the books.

Not anymore. Virginia voters approved Question 2, the AP projects. It removes the ban, affirms that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender or race, and requires all legally valid marriages to be treated equally. We explained the amendment in detail here.

It doesn’t change anyone’s marriage today. What it does is make the right harder to undo if federal protections ever weaken.

Texas: the anti-trans ad state flips

This is the result that will be studied. AP estimated about $58 million in anti-trans ad spending in the Texas Senate race alone.

Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Governor Greg Abbott and will be Texas’s first Latina governor, the Texas Tribune reports. Abbott’s ads had called her a “radical” who “supports boys in girls’ sports.” He spent nearly $118 million on ads to her roughly $26 million.

On the same night, Democrat James Talarico beat Republican Ken Paxton for the US Senate, the first statewide win for a Texas Democrat since 1994, NPR reports. One anti-trans ad against Talarico ran nearly 17,000 times, AP reported last week.

Correlation isn’t proof. Plenty drove this vote, and the AP-NORC poll we cited showed 85% of voters ranking the economy as a top issue against 12% for trans issues. But the strategy didn’t save the candidates who bet on it most heavily.

Still being counted

Not everything went one way, and not everything is final. In Colorado, early returns on election night showed support for two measures on trans students and youth healthcare, Propositions 134 and 135, Colorado Newsline reports. Missouri’s Amendment 3 on youth gender-affirming care and Vermont’s equal-protection Proposal 4 were still awaiting official results on Wednesday.

We’ll follow up when the counts are in. Our ballot measures guide explains what each one does.

What happens next

New senators and House members are sworn in in January 2027. So are new governors, including Hinojosa.

For now, there’s a simple thing worth noticing. A year of being told you’re a wedge issue ended with a gay man elected to the Senate, a trans congresswoman re-elected, and a Southern state writing marriage equality into its constitution. That’s not the end of the fight. It’s a good night, though.