When former Army Lieutenant Colonel and educator Pat Spearman ran for the Nevada State Senate in 2012, her platform was as ambitious as her chances were slim. She promised to work to reform Nevada’s education system, to improve environmental protections, and to stop obstructing tax reform like her opponent, incumbent John Lee, had been. But she was an underdog with little-to-no name recognition running against an incumbent state senator.
Spearman happened to be an underdog who was also openly gay. Shortly into the campaign a whisper campaign began against her, with one of her opponent’s supporters circulating rumors to the tone of, “I hear she’s gay.” Spearman responded with her trademark quick wit: “You don’t remember me being on TV trying to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell?”
The rumors, of course, were true. Spearman had been openly gay for years. That, along with opposition from conservative Christian ministries, could have hurt her chances of winning the seat. Moreover, the whisper campaign soon became coordinated with her opponent’s rhetoric, who argued that Spearman had been running a single-issue campaign focused solely on “gay rights.” Over the course of the primary during that hot Nevada summer, Spearman realized that she was being targeted for being gay.
Spearman won that primary by 26 points, and she went on to win the general election by over 37. This year, Spearman is running for the U.S. House of Representatives. She is part of a wave of openly gay candidates running in 2018, undeterred by anti-gay headwinds and determined to turn America’s political climate around.
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In 2006, only 7 percent of Americans thought that the country was ready for a gay president. At the time, most simultaneously reported being satisfied with the current state of gay rights. Gay marriage was legal in only one state — Massachusetts — and several states were in the process of passing bans to prevent the practice from spreading. This is the environment in which most openly gay candidates running today had to earn their political chops.
Over the past decade, most agree that voter opinion has progressed significantly. However, one expert, University of Kansas professor and author of Out and Running Don Haider-Markel, cautions against this triumphant narrative. In an interview with the HPR, he argued that increases in acceptance of gay people have drastically slowed from previous eras when public opinion was quickly becoming more and more favorable.
In 2018, more openly gay candidates than ever before are preparing to navigate this thick fog of public opinion on gay rights. The HPR spoke to candidates, campaign operatives, and experts involved in these races across the country. The conversations revealed that, despite an American public eager to identify homophobia as a relic of the past, being openly gay fundamentally changes how campaigns operate. In order to accommodate public opinion, political strategies must be altered — and they are. What these political considerations show is an American public still grappling with gayness, making the campaign landscape for gay candidates particularly difficult to navigate.
The candidates running in 2018 are emblematic of an age-old debate in the gay community: once equality is achieved, what should happen to gayness? Some argue that gayness should cease to exist. Andrew Sullivan argued in the New Republic in 1993 that “we should have a party and close down the gay rights movement for good” once equality has been won. Others like queer theorist Michael Warner argue for the opposite approach: “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”
Americans tend to reward the former. Professor Suzanna Walters of Northeastern University writes in her book The Tolerance Trap that “Americans are uniquely hasty to assert a ‘post-’ right before we approach the finish line, effectively shutting off the real and substantive public debate needed for that final push.” For gay candidates, minimizing their gayness might be the most expedient course of action.
Gay candidates also seem to agree with Sullivan’s view. Eager to see gayness as extraneous to their campaigns, most candidates argue that their constituents look beyond the politics of gay rights and see them for the individuals they are. Looking to the campaign stories of gay candidates, however, the story becomes a bit more complicated.
They Are Gay, And They Are Politicians
Gay politicians face two distinct challenges while running for office: they are gay, and they are politicians.
Being gay means that candidates are forced to navigate awkward hidden dynamics. Principal among those dynamics is the fact that, although voters might report being comfortable with gay candidates, they are often uncomfortable with gayness itself. In one survey, pollsters alternated between using the term “gay” and the term “homosexual” while asking respondents about their thoughts on gay rights. The researchers found that “homosexual,” a term that more explicitly states the reality of a gay relationship, is associated with much lower levels of voter support for gay rights. When voters are reminded of the actual mechanics of same-sex love, they turn away.
Voters are equally uncomfortable with other gay realities. In his book on “covering” — the practice of downplaying an identity already known to others — scholar Kenji Yoshino argues that gay individuals are far more palatable to the public than couples. Voters prefer to see bachelors; a working gay relationship reminds voters of the deviation from traditional families it represents.
Although it makes only a marginal difference in polling, voters also tend to prefer candidates who are outed by others rather than those who come out themselves. Haider-Markel explained that research consistently shows a small preference for candidates who are not immediately open about their identities over candidates who are openly gay from the beginning. One 2006 poll compiled by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund indicates that voters prefer closeted candidates by a margin of almost six points.
Gay politicians also face unique scrutiny for being politicians in the first place. In his book Value War, professor Paul Brewer argues that a mechanism called elite signalling has been the most powerful mechanism to shape attitudes on gay rights. Elite signalling occurs when an elite figure, such as a celebrity, publicly endorses an idea or concept to their audiences. When voters hear from media figures like Ellen DeGeneres and other celebrities that gayness is acceptable, their attitudes quickly change. But elite signalling does not work when those elites are politicians; voters are naturally skeptical of politicians and their motives, meaning that they are likely to be wary of politicians using their gayness as a political tool.
Gay candidates are aware of these particular challenges, and they confront them in several ways on the campaign trail. Rule one: they choose where to run very, very carefully.
Where They Run
Gay politicians have to especially careful about where they choose to run. Haider-Markel told the HPR that a number of factors are conducive to electing openly gay candidates. Gay candidates are more likely to succeed in wealthy districts. They are more likely to succeed in highly educated districts. They are more likely to succeed in districts with high proportions of female voters. Of course, they are more likely to succeed in districts with high proportions of gay voters. And, above all, gay candidates are more likely to succeed in districts that are strongholds for Democrats.
In an interview with the the HPR, Jacob Derzon, the finance director for openly gay candidate David Richardson running in Florida’s 27th district, highlighted just how critical such factors are for a successful campaign. From Derzon’s perspective, the heavily Democratic and cosmopolitan district “has helped create a more open environment” for an openly gay candidate like Richardson. Derzon also believes that Richardson’s identity as a gay person has resonated in a district with notable diversity and a large immigrant population.
Usually, if a potential candidate senses that a district is not amenable to electing an openly gay candidate, they will not run. However, a number of gay candidates who are part of the 2018 wave are running in areas of the country that are not so heavily Democratic, widening the playing field for gay politicians.
Gay activist Rick Neal, for example, is challenging a Republican candidate in a district that Donald Trump won with 55 percent of the vote. Despite running against the chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, Steve Stivers, in such a conservative district, Neal is not afraid. He has connected his identity as an openly gay man to two core Ohio values: common sense and respect. “Most people will agree that you should not be fired from your job or denied housing because of your sexual orientation or gender identity,” Neal told the HPR. “My opponent has a zero rating from the Human Rights Campaign. You have to work to get that, you know?”
“People are taken aback by the disrespect they’re seeing [in Washington]. That’s not Ohio,” he added.
Candidates running in bluer states like Nevada report different political environments. In an interview with the HPR, Nelson Araujo, an openly gay man running for Secretary of State in Nevada, could not recall any moments wherein being openly gay has been a liability during his campaign. “Nevada at its core truly does celebrate its diversity,” he said. “Nevada has been at the forefront of many issues when it comes to advancing LGBTQ equality.”
“Is He Married?”
Araujo’s argument that gayness has never explicitly been a liability in campaigning, while perhaps surprising, is not exceptional. Out of nine openly gay candidates interviewed by the HPR, not a single one mentioned a moment when their homosexual identity directly impacted their electoral outcome. Most responded to the question with a verbal pause, followed by a statement that they were confident that the voters in their district would look at qualifications rather than identity.
According to the candidates themselves, not one of the nine candidates interviewed ever faced an explicit incident of homophobia during the campaign. This could very well be true. It is much more likely, however, that they were simply unwilling to recount them.
In his landmark piece “What Was Gay?” J. Bryan Lowder argues that the “logic of bland ‘don’t blame me’” gayness limits us to “toleration rather than true pluralism.” “Born this way” political strategies, as he calls them, are likely to succeed but unlikely to be beneficial to a gay movement that seeks acceptance rather than tolerance.
But candidates’ blanket denial of their identities playing a role in campaigning ignores the salience of anti-gay biases and tropes, and how those tropes shape their own campaigns.
In fact, most polling data show that voters are far less likely to support gay candidates. Over a quarter of voters polled nationally report that a candidate being openly gay makes them less likely to support the candidate, compared to 4 percent who report it making them more likely to support the candidate and 70 percent who say it does not matter. For the gay candidates running in 2018, it seems, one in four voters may write them off before the campaign even begins.
No political candidate is immune to attacks in the media. Hostile attack ads put a lifetime of statements, a candidate’s family, and their personal attributes all on the table. Yet no one faces more crude, barnyard attack ads than gay candidates do.
Many gay candidates are critiqued for being too refined and too feminine. In March 2018, Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alec Ross argued that his openly gay opponent Richard Madaleno simply “prances around Annapolis talking” rather than getting things done. “Prancing” is a common derogatory term used to describe the motions of gay men. Madaleno responded succinctly: “Trust me to prance my way to the governor’s mansion this November.”
These dog-whistle affronts to gay campaigns are all too common. In an interview with gay news source Pink Outlet, Sean Meloy of the LGBTQ advocacy organization Victory Fund notes that gay candidates “constantly face homophobic dog-whistle attacks.”
Another anti-gay stereotype involves tying gay or pro-gay candidates to San Francisco. The San Francisco trope is particularly effective, and it has been used for decades against San Francisco-based congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. In 2008, straight politician and former mayor of Kansas City Kay Barnes faced an attack ad that accused her of bringing “San Francisco values” to Kansas. Barnes went on to lose her campaign against her “small businessman-farmer” opponent Sam Graves.
Gay men in particular often face the ‘bachelor trope.’ Being a lifelong bachelor and being a gay man have been closely linked in history since James Buchanan won the White House in 1856. Today, gay men without husbands or long-term partners are forced to grapple with this trope. In 2016, Bryan Urias campaigned as an openly gay man for the California State Assembly. He lost in the primary to another Democratic candidate, Blanca Rubio. His Deputy Field Director, Natalie Reyes, told the HPR that she remembered “hearing back from canvassers the type of conversations they would have with the undecided voters where they would usually ask if he was married.” Gay politicians, more so than straight ones, face particular scrutiny into their personal lives and family-related decisions from voters.
Gay men are also often perceived as weak on defense issues. Nineteen percent of voters perceive gay politicians as either “less competent” or “somewhat less competent” on military issues, compared to 76 percent who believe it does not matter and only 5 percent who believe it would make them more competent. Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay U.S. Senator in American history, is already facing attacks of this sort ahead of her 2018 campaign for reelection; her GOP opponent, Kevin Nicholson, frequently touts his experience as a “marine,” “combat veteran,” and “bronze star recipient” in direct contrast to her record. Another GOP group attempting to get Sheriff David Clarke to run for the seat has called Baldwin a “liberal lesbian extremist.”
With all of these factors considered, it is unsurprising that campaigning as a gay person can be mentally exhausting. Coming out, for most gay individuals, is already a constant exercise that must happen again and again in various contexts and to various individuals. For gay candidates, who are constantly making personal introductions, the burden is bigger. Pat Davis, a gay candidate for Congress in New Mexico, told the HPR that he is constantly inundated with concerns from older voters that he is being too open about having a husband.
Laws of Gay Politics
Most gay candidates claim that their identity has not changed their campaign strategy. However, clear differences between gay and straight campaigns show that candidates are indeed forced to reckon with their queerness while campaigning. The frequent interactions with voters wary of gayness and a media environment eager to highlight gay identities makes campaigning while queer a balancing act without equal.
Gay politicians, despite the progress that every candidate is eager to tout, overwhelmingly tend to avoid displaying their families and partners prominently on their campaign websites. Five out of nine randomly sampled 2016 gubernatorial campaigns with straight candidates featured a partner or family member prominently on their website, whereas only one of the nine openly gay candidates interviewed by the HPR do the same.
Despite this meager showing, data indicate that candidates are even less likely to feature their families and partners on TV or in print than online. In fact, it was not until 2011 that an openly gay candidate featured a family member in a campaign ad, when San Francisco Mayoral candidate Bevan Dufty aired an ad featuring his son.
But being gay does not only change the media strategies of candidates — it also changes their approaches in the field. Most openly gay candidates, for example, tend to do more canvassing than their straight counterparts. In his book Value War, Paul Brewer argues that “contact with more LGBTQ people leads to more favorable views on LGBT rights and [gay] candidates as well.” Haider-Markel went so far as to call canvassing almost a “law” of gay politics because it is such an effective tool to counter the anti-gay biases that voters may harbor.
Candidates on the ground agree that canvassing is absolutely essential as well. Rufus Gifford, former Ambassador to Denmark and openly gay congressional candidate in the 3rd District of Massachusetts, told the HPR that he wants to run “the most modern and old-fashioned campaign at the same time.” His campaign might feature high-tech digital tools to target voters, but it consists mostly of an incredible amount of personal canvassing by Gifford. “We win with a very human approach,” he said. “We’re going to be the most aggressively grassroots campaign and that’s how we win.”
Beyond restricting campaigns, gayness can also strengthen campaign strategies. A number of candidates interviewed by the HPR added that their gayness was often a strength while campaigning rather than a weakness.
Araujo said that his identity as an openly gay man of color strengthens him and gives him the empathy necessary to understand multiple communities while running for secretary of state. “When you have that ability … nothing can really stop you,” he summarized.
Gayness can also generate more media coverage than the average candidate gets, especially in the primaries. This “considerable free media attention,” as Haider-Markel calls it in Out and Running, is often the same media attention that gives voters a first impression of the candidate and can help them win. Organizations like the Human Rights Campaign and the Victory Fund also help publicize openly gay candidates and their campaigns.
Araujo also said that the LGBTQ community has been “a huge help” in the field. LGBTQ voters want to canvass and phonebank for openly gay candidates more than they do for straight candidates, regardless of their stances. “I think in 2018 we’re going to be seeing a tsunami come from [the LGBTQ community’s] side,” he added. Haider-Markel agreed that most gay candidates report increased interest in phone banking and canvassing by LGBTQ voters, too: “[Gay candidates] will get volunteers not only locally, but also [others] who will come in from other places.”
However, accounts vary on how united the gay community truly is. Gifford argues that there is “no community as supportive and loyal as the national LGBTQ community,” but others are more skeptical about this unity. Reyes told the HPR that failing to receive the support of a local LGBTQ political club was a lowpoint in Urias’s failed campaign. “I definitely remember when our campaign did not receive the endorsement of the local Stonewall democratic club,” she noted. “It is public and known that Urias is an LGBTQ elected official in his current capacity as a member of the local water board. The club ended up supporting the Latina candidate. It was a stun to our campaign because we were positive that our candidate, an openly gay man, would receive their support.”
For some, the key political task of fundraising has been a bit easier thanks to being gay. Derzon told the HPR that money came in “a lot quicker” in part thanks to Richardson’s identity as an openly gay candidate. Pat Davis said that being gay helped him “open the door” to new fundraising opportunities for the campaign.
Young gay candidates can still be plagued by the same problems as straight candidates, however. Only one day after contacting another openly gay candidate, Austin Frerick in Iowa, the HPR received an email saying that the candidate had been forced out due to lackluster fundraising. In an emailed statement, the candidate said that “in 2018, money remains the largest barrier to participating in our democracy.”
Few groups are more involved in the Democratic campaign apparatus than the LGBTQ community. This heavy involvement in politics gives gay candidates a deep bench from which to recruit staff talent for their campaigns. Katie Hill, an openly bisexual candidate from California running for the U.S. House of Representatives, told the HPR that her campaign employs an inordinate amount of LGBTQ campaign staff. Gay political candidates, Haider-Markel added, tend to be much more qualified than their straight counterparts: “They come to the candidacy in a stronger position than the other candidate does, partly because they perceive this barrier.” An openly gay candidate is therefore likely to be more qualified individually and to recruit a more qualified staff.
21,307 Offices Left
The reality that gayness changes campaigns is clear, despite the identity blindness so many gay politicians claim. American voters are still grappling with the idea of homosexuals in the public sphere, and that struggle translates into different campaign decisions that candidates have to make. And yet, candidates are completely unwilling to publicly reveal the ways that being gay hurts and exclusively willing to reveal the ways it helps. They frequently mention their lack of choice regarding their sexual identity and instead pivot to the other numerous ways in which they are qualified to run. They understand the reality that gayness changes a campaign, and they are afraid of it.
Their fear makes sense. No political candidate wants to peddle a narrative of victimhood. No political candidate wants to resign themselves to structural factors like homophobia and their consequences. Nevertheless, an alternative project for gay candidates might be possible. It might be possible to maintain a politically tenable candidacy while also acknowledging that you have faced explicit incidents of homophobia on the campaign trail, that coming out over and over again has been exhausting, and that all of those challenges have made you a better public servant. Gayness doesn’t have to be a liability, it can be an asset.
Gay representation in elected office needs to increase fifty-fold to adequately represent Americans. That means LGBTQ candidates need to win 21,307 more elected offices in America. We have a long way to go. It seems there is a long way to go before we can begin planning the party to shutter the gay rights movement for good.
The cover art for this article was created by Brenna Leaver , a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, for the exclusive use of the HPR’s Red Line.
