On the sidelines of the United States' presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, US citizens also got to vote for their states' Senators yesterday, and Delaware, a small state lumped between Philadelphia and Washington, with a population of less than a million people, was in for a big surprise on that front.
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Sarah McBride, a transgender woman, was elected to a US Senate seat! She's officially the first openly transgender Senator in the history of the United States.
A Democrat, Sarah McBride beat her Republican opponent by a landslide, raking in 86% of the votes. The new senator celebrated her victory on her Twitter account, where she tweeted: 'We did it. We won the election. I hope my victory shows an LGBTQ kid that our democracy is big enough for them, too.'
A Delaware native, just like Biden
Sarah McBride is an LGBTQ rights activist (she's the spokesperson for the human rights campaign) who already has extensive political experience at just 30 years old. She worked in the White House during Barack Obama's tenure and worked with Beau Biden, Joe Biden's late son, when he was Delaware's attorney general.
Victory Fund, an organization that campaigns for the election of transgender people, responded to the election describing her victory as 'a powerful reminder that voters are increasingly rejecting policies that breed intolerance in favour of candidates who fight for justice and equality.'
A total of four transgender people were elected across all US states.
