Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Not A Good Night For Trans Candidates Either


It's raining here in Houston, and it's matching my mood as I type this post sorting through the news coming from a forgettable political night.

While it's no secret the Democrats had a lousy Election Night 2014, it wasn't much better for trans political candidates either.  

We'd already witnessed Paula Sophia miss in an August runoff taking an open Democratic leaning Oklahoma state legislative seat back in August by an agonizing 23 votes.

There were two other trans candidates in this election cycle trying to make history, with Lauren Scott attempting to claim the historical footnote for the GOP and get elected in the state of Nevada as an out transgender legislator.

While it was a great night for her party, which erased a 27-15 Democratic advantage in the Nevada State Assembly to take control of the Nevada House, unfortunately for Scott she wasn't one of the GOP success stories.

She fell to AD 30 incumbent Assemblyman Michael Sprinkle (D) by a 54%-46% margin.  While that was impressive along with the 5,293 votes she got, wasn't enough to overcome the 6,187 votes that Sprinkle received for the win.

In Wyoming, Democrat Larissa Sneider lost her bid for a House seat against a popular GOP incumbent Garry Piiparinen in Wyoming's 49th District.

Sneider was unopposed in the Wyoming Democratic primary, but in the general election had to deal with a three way race that included Independent Clarence Vranish.

Vranish finished second in the balloting and garnered 724 votes to winner Piiparinen's 1,333.    Sneider picked up 417 votes in her unsuccessful effort to make trans legislative history.

So we are still waiting for an out trans candidate to be elected to a state legislature in the US.  It's going to happen, and it's a matter of if and not when that trans political history is made.

It's just last night wasn't the night for it and 2014 wasn't the year that trans history came to fruition


 

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