Gay MAGA Republican George Santos wins House race

In a historic first for the country, two gay candidates ran against each other in a general election for Congress.

George Santos – a Trump-loving Republican who has called himself “a walking, living, breathing contradiction” – beat out Democrat Robert Zimmerman to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District and become the first out LGBTQ member of Congress from Long Island, getting 54% of the vote with 93% of precincts reporting.

While Zimmerman ran on a platform of LGBTQ equality, Santos has said abortion is as barbaric as slavery and has voiced support for Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

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He attended the January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol and was recently caught on video saying he wrote a “nice check” to help cover the legal fees of some of the rioters. Santos has denied supporting the lie that President Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

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Santos’s official platform was focused on battling inflation, crime, and energy costs. In 2020, he described himself as “more fiscally conservative but socially liberal.” He also tweeted that his sexuality has nothing to do with the issues and lambasted his liberal critics for “play[ing] identity politics” and calling him a “‘misguided self-hating gay.”‘

“George Santos is gay. That’s where his commitment ends,” Zimmerman told LGBTQ Nation in a recent interview. “He actually has publicly endorsed the Don’t Say Gay legislation that has been put forward in Florida and in 19 states. He actually uses words like ‘grooming,’ and he chooses to embrace and stand with homophobes and bigots like Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

In early 2021, Santos attended an event at Donald Trump’s home in Mar-A-Lago where no one was wearing masks. His fiance lost his job as a pharmacist and Santos claimed that the New York Times reporting this was “violence against us” as conservatives.

Zimmerman was a frontrunner in the race due to recent redistricting that caused the area to lean Democratic, but Santos still came out on top.