UPDATED! Election Results: What Was GOOD For LGBT, Progressive Voters
Here’s a rundown of major “good” results — the good, as in, good for progressives and the LGBT community. I’ll update this throughout the day, but stay tuned also for “the bad” list for progressives and the LGBT community, and the just plain wrong, bad, and ugly.
Here goes.
The Good
UPDATES: 3:00 PM
The Victory Fund reminds us that “more openly LGBT candidates won election to public office in the U.S. in 2010 than in any year in America’s history. At least 106 of the group’s record-breaking 164 endorsed candidates were winners as of Wednesday morning, including Providence, R.I., Mayor David Cicilline.”
In a close race, Vermont’s Peter Shumlin is now its Democratic Governor-elect. This is excellent news for the LGBT community, as a state senator, Shumlin has been central to vermont’s support first of civil unions, then, seven years later, of same-sex marriage. It is critical to note that Shumlin was elevate to the Governorship after helping to usher in same-sex marriage.
As a reader notes in the comments below, “One other pro-equality governor: Here in Colorado, we elected John Hickenlooper!” Awesome!
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In important symbolism, Harry Reid kept his Senate seat –Â and Senate Majority Leader Chair — over Tea Party bigot and immigrant-hater Sharron Angle. Angle’s loss, along with Delaware Tea Party “candidate” Christine O’Donnell’s loss, are important wins not only for the LGBT community, but for the integrity of American politics.
Marriage equality advocates are heartened to see pro-equality governors win in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. New York’s Andrew Cuomo won handily over bigoted, anti-gay, pro-pornography, pro-bestiality, pro-racism, anti-Mosque, etc., Carl Paladino. Former Stamford, Connecticut Mayor and pro-gay rights advocate Dan Malloy squeaked by to a projected gubernatorial win. In Rhode Island, Lincoln D. Chafee will become that state’s first Independent Governor. A former Republican, Chafee actually is one of the few who has supported marriage equality in the past.
More good news coming from Rhode Island. The openly-gay mayor of Providence, R.I., David Cicilline, won his Congressional race. He will join three other openly-gay Representatives in Congress, Democrats Tammy Baldwin, Jared Polis, and Barney Frank.
Massachusetts’ Barney Frank did indeed keep his seat, much to the chagrin of GOProud, who spent a great deal of money, foolishly, attempting to hide their self-contempt.
In honor of GOProud’s efforts, Massachusetts went “all-blue!” Take that, GOProud!
As of this writing, Minnesota Democrat and marriage-equality advocate Mark Dayton is beating Target and Tea Party-supported Republican Tom Emmer in the Minnesota governor’s race. Expect a recount.
California, perhaps, decided to offer equality a payback after Prop 8. They have elected former Governor Jerry Brown back into that office. He roundly beat anti-immigrant and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Brown will not challenge the federal court’s Prop 8 ruling. We’re still waiting the results of the Attorney General’s race there, but it looks like the Democrat, Kamala Harris, has a slim lead. Also in an important win for Democrats, Barbara Boxer beat former HP CEO Carly Fiorina.
In other California news, equality-advocate Gavin Newsom appears to have won the lieutenant governor’s race, and California now ties with Maryland as having seven openly-gay state legislators.
Colorado’s Senator, Michael Bennett has defeated the Tea Party’s anti-gay homophobe, Ken Buck. Also in Colorado, voters defeated an anti-abortion “personhood” amendment that would have established constitutional rights “at the beginning of biological development.”
In New Hampshire, pro-marriage equality Governor John Lynch, whom NOM spent millions trying to defeat, kept his seat.
Tea Party homophobe Joe Miller is losing in Alaska to write-in Republican Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski may be a Republican, but I’ll take her over Miller any day of the week.
What did I miss? Add it in the comments below, or email me. I’ll update this later today, and release “The Bad and The Ugly” list shortly.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
