Today, the Human Rights Campaign announced the endorsement of 40 House and five Senate candidates crucial to maintaining or establishing pro-equality majorities in the U.S. Congress, including U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D) and Congresswoman Elaine Luria, (D-VA 2).
“It is an honor to have earned the endorsement of HRC,” said Congresswoman Elaine Luria. “As an original co-sponsor of the Equality Act, I will continue to work to ensure that all Americans have equal protection under the law.”
The Human Rights Campaign’s endorsement of Congresswoman Luria’s 2020 reelection campaign is a testament to her effectiveness as an ally of the LGBTQ community in Congress. A 2019 GovTrack Report Card listed Congresswoman Luria as one of the most effective members of Congress, passing the third most laws of any Representative and the most of any House Freshman.
“I am honored to have earned the support of the Human Rights Campaign,” said Sen. Mark Warner. “We’ve made tremendous strides in the journey towards equality, but a great deal of work still remains. We need to elect a United States Senate that will pass the Equality Act and move us closer to true equality for all of our LGBTQ friends and neighbors. Discrimination has no place in Virginia or our country.”
On May 17, 2019 the U.S. House made history by passing the Equality Act — crucial federal legislation that would finally guarantee explicit protections for LGBTQ people under our nation’s existing civil rights laws — for the first time. Never before had a comprehensive LGBTQ non-discrimination bill passed a chamber of the U.S. Congress. The candidates endorsed today were absolutely crucial to that victory in the House and will be crucial to establishing a pro-equality majority in the U.S. Senate to break Sen. Mitch McConnell’s stranglehold on LGBTQ rights and protections. With a new pro-equality Senate majority alongside the House pro-equality majority, we have the opportunity not just to pass the Equality Act, but ensure access to quality, affordable health care is protected, common sense gun safety legislation can be considered, voting rights can be advanced, and anti-equality judges are not appointed to our federal courts and the Supreme Court.
“In 2018, HRC stood with many of these pro-equality leaders to build a pro-equality majority in the U.S. House and pass the Equality Act. Within months of taking office, they did just that,” said HRC President Alphonso David. “Now HRC and these champions for equality must work together to ensure we maintain a pro-equality majority in the U.S. House and establish one in the U.S. Senate. Mitch McConnell’s refusal to allow consideration of the Equality Act leaves LGBTQ people across America at risk of being fired from jobs, refused essential services like health care, and more vulnerable to violence. HRC will work to mobilize 57 million Equality Voters nationwide to turn out this November and ensure these endorsed candidates win because lives are on the line.”
In the 2018 midterms, HRC helped register more than 32,000 voters and recruited more than 4,200 volunteers, who worked over 8,500 shifts and clocked more than 30,000 volunteer hours. In the critical final four days of the campaign, HRC staff and volunteers in get-out-the-vote efforts alone knocked on more than 80,000 doors, and held 36,400 conversations with voters at their doors and by phone on behalf of our endorsed candidates. HRC’s unprecedented grassroots mobilization worked to recruit volunteers, mobilize constituents, register voters and grow the organization’s grassroots army in an all-out effort to pull the emergency brake on the hateful anti-LGBTQ agenda of the Trump-Pence administration and elect a Congress that would hold them accountable. In 2020, our engagement and mobilization efforts will only deepen. HRC will have at least 45 full-time staff in these seven priority states and an additional 20 staff focused on a second tier of states and districts.
U.S. Senate Endorsements
- Barbara Bollier (D-KS)
- Cal Cunningham (D-NC)
- Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
- Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)
- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
These candidates join our previously endorsed Senate candidates:
- Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL)
- Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI)
- Jaime Harrison (D-SC)
- Mark Kelly (D-AZ)
- Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM)
- Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN
U.S. House Endorsements
- Rep. Tom O’Halleran (AZ-1)
- Rep. Josh Harder (CA-10)
- Rep. TJ Cox (CA-21)
- Rep. Gil Cisneros (CA-39)
- Rep. Mark Takano (CA-41)
- Rep. Katie Porter (CA-45)
- Rep. Harley Rouda (CA-48)
- Rep. Mike Levin (CA-49)
- Rep. Jason Crow (CO-6)
- Rep. Jahana Hayes (CT-5)
- Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL-26)
- Rep. Abby Finkenauer (IA-1)
- Rep. Cindy Axne (IA-3)
- Rep. Sean Casten (IL-6)
- Rep. Lauren Underwood (IL-14)
- Rep. Sharice Davids (KS-3)
- Rep. Jared Golden (ME-2)
- Rep. Elissa Slotkin (MI-8)
- Rep. Haley Stevens (MI-11)
- Rep. Chris Pappas (NH-1)
- Rep. Andy Kim (NJ-3)
- Rep. Josh Gottheimer (NJ-5)
- Rep. Tom Malinowski (NJ-7)
- Rep. Mikie Sherrill (NJ-11)
- Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (NM-2)
- Rep. Max Rose (NY-11)
- Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18)
- Rep. Antonio Delgado (NY-19)
- Rep. Anthony Brindisi (NY-22)
- Rep. Kendra Horn (OK-5)
- Rep. Susan Wild (PA-7)
- Rep. Matt Cartwright (PA-8)
- Rep. Conor Lamb (PA-17)
- Rep. David Cicilline (RI-1)
- Rep. Joe Cunningham (SC-1)
- Rep. Ben McAdams (UT-4)
- Rep. Elaine Luria (VA-2)
- Rep. Abigail Spanberger (VA-7)
- Rep. Kim Schrier (WA-8)
- Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-2)
These candidates join our previously endorsed House candidates:
- Speaker Nancy Pelosi (CA-12)
- Christy Smith (CA-25)
- Rep. Lucy McBath (GA-6)
- Jon Hoadley (MI-6)
- Rep. Angie Craig (MN-2)
- Rep. Susie Lee (NV-3)
- Rep. Steven Horsford (NV-4)
- Rep. Joyce Beatty (OH-3)
- Rep. Marcy Kaptur (OH-9)
- Rep. Marcia Fudge (OH-11)
- Rep. Tim Ryan (OH-13)
- Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (TX-7)
- Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23)
- Rep. Colin Allred (TX-32)
