Georgia elects its first out LGBTQ+ member of Congress — for just four months

Everton Blair, a Black gay Democrat who told The Advocate earlier this year that his party needed leaders willing to fight harder against President Donald Trump, is headed to Congress after pulling off an upset in a Georgia special election Tuesday.Blair defeated Marcye Scott, the daughter of the late Democratic U.S. Rep. David Scott, 53 percent to 47 percent in the runoff for Georgia’s 13th Congressional District, according to unofficial results. Scott had entered the runoff with an apparent advantage after taking 46 percent of the vote in July’s first round, compared with 37 percent for Blair, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.The victory makes Blair Georgia’s first out LGBTQ+ person elected to Congress and the first out gay Black person elected to Congress from a Southern state. Nationally, he is only the third out gay Black person elected to Congress, following New York Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones in 2020. It also sends to Washington a 34-year-old former teacher and local school board leader who had originally entered the race arguing that the district needed a generational change from the man whose seat he will now briefly occupy.Related: Georgia education champion could be first Black out gay man to represent South in CongressBlair is expected to be sworn in when the House returns in September and will serve only through the end of David Scott’s term in January. But his abbreviated tenure could arrive at an unusually consequential moment as Republicans are operating with a razor-thin House majority, meaning one additional Democratic vote can matter on legislation that otherwise might come down to a handful of members.About 20,000 of the district’s roughly 539,000 active voters cast ballots Tuesday, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Blair launched his campaign as a challenge to David Scott, a 12-term incumbent whom Blair criticized for prolonged absences from Congress and what he saw as inadequate representation of t