Victory Spotlight Candidates Kate Brown of Oregon and Jim Gray of Kentucky both won their Democratic primaries in a landslide on Tuesday.
Brown is the incumbent governor of Oregon, and faces her first election for the position. Previouly Oregon’s secretary of state, she was installed as governor following the resignation of Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2015. She’s the only current openly LGBTQ governor in the country, as well as the first openly bisexual governor in American history.
On Tuesday, Brown came in first with nearly 85 percent of the vote, earning more than 400,000 votes in total.
Meanwhile in Kentucky, two-term Lexington Mayor Jim Gray earned nearly 59 percent of the primary vote, with more than 240,000 votes cast in his favor. Gray became Lexington’s first openly gay mayor when he was elected in 2010, and he went on to win a second term in 2014. Gray previously served on the Lexington City Council and was vice mayor from 2007 to 2010.
Gray now faces Republican Sen. Rand Paul in November. If elected, he’ll become the first openly LGBTQ statewide elected official in Kentucky, as well as the second openly gay U.S. senator.
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