Sarah McBride didn’t give them the fight they wanted. She won anyway

On December 11, 2024, Sarah McBride needed a moment.We were at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., for a photo shoot for The Advocate’s January cover story. A few weeks earlier, during new member orientation following her historic election, we had sat down to talk about the work ahead. She was preparing to become the first out transgender member of Congress.Between that conversation and the photo shoot, Republicans had launched a campaign to keep her out of women’s bathrooms.Photographer Mike Nelson had just set up to shoot at a window in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building, with the Capitol dome visible in the distance. The shoot stopped. McBride stepped away briefly before returning.What I didn’t know then was that she was having a panic attack.“This place that I had worshiped for so long, revered for so long was the place that was causing me a panic attack,” she says.McBride shares that memory in an interview three days before this year’s midterms. She remembers the shoot as her first return to the building after the bathroom ban.From the outside, people mostly saw a woman keeping her cool. Some admired her restraint. Others wanted her to fight differently, more loudly, more visibly. Meanwhile, she still had to walk into the building.Rep. Becca Balint, the Vermont Democrat who has become her friend, has been beside her for some of those walks.“I’ve been with her when people have tried to verbally harass her,” Balint tells The Advocate. “I get worried sometimes that people expect someone like Sarah to be perfect all the time in what she says and how she says it and how she shows up.”Delaware voters have now given McBride another term, with more than 64 percent of the vote against Republican Joseph Arminio. She even carried Sussex County, the conservative southern county she lost in 2024, with about 53 percent.With Democrats taking back the House, McBride will return with two years of relationships and legislative experience —