Good news -- Kyrsten Sinema, an openly bisexual state senator from Arizona, has been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
PHOENIX — Former Democratic state Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has been elected to represent a new Phoenix-area congressional district, emerging victorious after a bitterly fought race that featured millions of dollars in attack ads.
Sinema becomes the first openly bisexual member of Congress. Her victory came in a year when three states approved gay marriage, and at least five openly gay Democrats were elected to House seats. A Wisconsin congresswoman also became the first openly gay person elected to the Senate.
Sinema had a narrow lead on election night that made the race too close to call. But she slowly improved that advantage as more ballots were tallied in recent days, and now has a nearly 6,000-vote edge that is too much for Republican Vernon Parker to overcome.
We have our first openly-gay member of the Senate, our firstly openly-bisexual member of congress, a record number of women in the House, and a record number of women in the Senate.
And this is owed, in part, to Arizona of all places. And this is no small feat considering that Sinema's Republican challenger, Vernon Parker, received endorsements from many high profile Republican figures and held fundraisers with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Oversight Chairman Darrell "Witch Hunt" Issa.
In that regard, you may even consider this a rebuke of their policies.
It should be mentioned that Arizona is still counting hundreds of thousands of ballots.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett’s said Saturday that approximately 486,405 ballots still have to be counted across the state, representing more than a quarter of the 1.8 million votes cast. About 322,000 of those uncounted ballots came from Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and many of its suburbs. The statewide total included 307,620 early ballots and 178,785 provisional ballots.
And we give Florida a lot of shit around here for their election shenanigans.