On Tuesday, 3 November 2026, voters will pick all 435 House members, a third of the Senate and 36 governors. A large group of openly LGBTQ+ candidates will be among them. The Washington Blade reports that the House delegation could grow from 12 openly LGBTQ+ members to as many as 17 if Democrats do well. The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group with an interest in the outcome, says the same thing in a memo published today.
Nobody has published a complete list, and this piece does not claim to be one. The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, the main endorsing group, had endorsed 163 candidates for 2026 by March and kept adding names through the summer. Its 2024 count was 471 endorsed candidates on the November ballot. What follows covers the federal and governor races where reporting and ratings exist, with the caveat that ratings move.
One pattern is hard to miss. Every federal candidate on the Washington Blade’s September list is a Democrat. Log Cabin Republicans endorsed 22 GOP candidates in February, but the group backs Republicans who support LGBTQ+ equality, and the coverage reviewed does not identify openly LGBTQ+ Republican nominees in competitive federal races.
Senate and governor
| Candidate | Race | Opponent | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Pappas (D) | New Hampshire, open Senate seat | John E. Sununu (R) | Cook and Inside Elections: Lean D. Sabato: Likely D. Polling average about Pappas +7 |
| Tina Kotek (D, incumbent) | Oregon governor | Christine Drazan (R) | Consensus rating: Lean D. Close in polls |
| Maura Healey (D, incumbent) | Massachusetts governor | Mike Minogue (R) | Rated Solid D. Healey led by 25 points in an October poll |
Pappas would be the first openly gay man elected to the Senate, and the race has moved more than most. A late-August University of New Hampshire poll had Sununu ahead 45 to 43, and Cook briefly moved the race to Toss-up in mid-September. Since then, a UNH poll showed Pappas up 8 and a New York Times/Siena poll had him up 5. One polling average put him at 50.2 percent to 43.0 percent as of 20 October. Prediction markets are more confident than the forecasters: Kalshi priced him at about 90 percent. Sununu’s family name and personal popularity in the state are the reason the race stayed live.
Kotek has the shakier position of the two governors. She would extend Oregon’s streak of Democratic governors, unbroken since 1982. Her favorability stood at 38 percent in one poll, and a September poll showed Drazan with a narrow lead inside the margin of error. OPB notes that polls looked similarly tight in the final weeks of 2018 and 2022, and Democrats won both races comfortably. Healey, meanwhile, led Minogue by 25 points in a UMass Amherst/WCVB poll on 19 October.
Rep. Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat who had been seen as an early Senate front-runner, lost her August primary to Peggy Flanagan and is not on the general-election ballot.
The House seats that could change hands
| Candidate | District | Opponent | Rating and polling |
|---|---|---|---|
| JoAnna Mendoza (D) | AZ-06 (Tucson area) | Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R) | Cook: Lean D, moved from Toss-up. Polls show a margin of about 2 points |
| Marni von Wilpert (D) | CA-48 (open, San Diego County) | Jim Desmond (R) | Cook: Lean D. A New York Times poll had her up 45 to 42 |
| Cait Conley (D) | NY-17 (Hudson Valley) | Rep. Mike Lawler (R) | Cook: Toss-up |
| JD Ford (D) | IN-5 (Indianapolis suburbs) | Rep. Victoria Spartz (R) | Long shot. Ballotpedia lists Cook as Solid R |
| Chris Gallant (D) | NY-1 (Long Island) | Rep. Nick LaLota (R) | Strong Republican favorite |
HRC’s memo singles out Mendoza, von Wilpert and Conley as candidates who could flip the House on their own in a close national fight. Mendoza, a Navy and Marine Corps veteran, is the closest to a coin flip that has tilted her way: Cook shifted AZ-06 to Lean Democratic this week, while Ciscomani’s campaign says voters will decide, not Washington pundits. Conley, a former National Security Council staffer and Army veteran, faces the toughest rating of the three. Lawler won in 2024, and Cook still calls the seat a Toss-up.
Gallant has leaned into a smear campaign based on sexy BDSM pictures from his youth. His chances are slim but the publicity of a rather good-looking and defined candidate hasn’t hurt him, either.
Ford is the interesting outlier. He was the first openly gay member of the Indiana legislature, and the only public poll is his own campaign’s internal survey, which showed him trailing Spartz 48 to 46 in July. The Washington Examiner described the race as surprisingly close for a district that should be safe. An internal poll from one side is weak evidence, and Ford remains the underdog.
The safer seats
| Candidate | District | Opponent | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sharice Davids (D, incumbent) | KS-3 | Blake Stanley (R) | Cook: Solid D. Sabato: Likely D |
| Eric Sorensen (D, incumbent) | IL-17 | Dillan Vancil (R) | Cook: Likely D. One forecast has Sorensen 59 to 40 |
| Jeremy Moss (D) | MI-11 (open) | Ethan Baker (R) | Cook: Solid D. Would be Michigan’s first out LGBTQ+ member of Congress |
| Scott Wiener (D) | CA-11 (open, San Francisco) | Connie Chan (D) | Two Democrats advanced. A New York Times poll had Wiener up 45 to 40 |
| Emily Randall (D, incumbent) | WA-6 | Teresa Fox (R) | Randall won about 60 percent in the August primary to Fox’s 25 percent |
| Becca Balint (D, incumbent) | Vermont, at-large | Gerald Malloy (R) | Poll: 60 to 30 |
| Sarah McBride (D, incumbent) | Delaware, at-large | Joseph Arminio (R) | Modeled chance above 99 percent |
| Mark Pocan (D, incumbent) | WI-2 | No Republican on the ballot | Modeled chance above 99 percent |
| Mark Takano, Robert Garcia, Ritchie Torres (D, incumbents) | CA-39, CA-42, NY-15 | Various | Heavily favored |
Details for most of this table come from the Blade’s September roundup. Davids is the one to watch for turnout rather than outcome. Republicans in Kansas tried and failed to redraw her district, and she now sits in a solidly rated seat. McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, faces no meaningful risk. Wiener’s contest is a different kind of race: the seat stays Democratic either way, and the open question is whether the district picks the state senator or the Pelosi-endorsed supervisor.
Delegate Janelle Sarauw, a Democrat, is favored in the US Virgin Islands against independent Shelley Moorhead. That seat has no vote on the House floor.
Below the federal level
Most LGBTQ+ candidates are not in Congress. The Victory Fund’s endorsements run to county commissions, school boards, mayors and state legislatures. HRC’s PAC has separately endorsed more than 20 transgender and nonbinary state legislative candidates. No national outlet has published a single list of all of them, so readers following a specific state or city should check the Victory Fund’s candidate database.
What the ratings mean
A “Lean Democratic” label is a probability, not a call. Forecasters in 2022 and 2024 missed races rated as leaning one way. This cycle has an additional wrinkle: advocacy groups, including HRC, argue that anti-trans attacks will backfire on Republicans, while Republicans argue the opposite about the same issue. Neither claim has been tested at scale yet. As of mid-October, the Silver Bulletin’s generic ballot average showed Democrats ahead by about 8.6 points, a national tilt that helps nearly every Democrat on this list.
The races that will reveal the most, in order: New Hampshire’s Senate seat, AZ-06, NY-17 and CA-48. California counts late, so von Wilpert’s result may take days.
Sources
- Washington Blade, Meet the LGBTQ candidates running for U.S. House, Senate (30 Sept)
- Washington Blade, Midterms could put LGBTQ lawmakers in committee chairmanships (27 Oct)
- Human Rights Campaign, Midterm forecast memo (27 Oct)
- LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, past election results
- The Advocate, Victory Fund 2026 endorsements and Jeremy Moss profile
- Instinct, Log Cabin Republicans endorsements
- Ballotpedia, NH Senate race
- The Hill, Cook shifts NH to Toss-up
- Newsweek, NH Senate
- On Point Politics, NH polling average
- Prediction Markets Picks, NH Kalshi odds
- Ballotpedia, Minnesota Senate primary
- MultiState, Oregon governor and OPB, September poll
- UMass Amherst/WCVB poll, Massachusetts
- Tucson.com, AZ-06 rating change
- Election Central, House ratings table
- Washington Examiner, Indiana 5th and Ford campaign poll
- Ballotpedia district pages: Kansas 3rd, Illinois 17th, Michigan 11th
Sourcing note: Ratings and polls reflect what was published through 27 October and can change before election day. Several “modeled chance” figures for safe seats come from the Washington Blade’s roundup of forecast sites and were not independently checked. The Blade list covers federal candidates only and omits some LGBTQ+ members of Congress, so absence from this piece does not mean a candidate is off the ballot. The Blade’s Conley polling figure appears to come from a prediction-market page, so Cook’s Toss-up rating is used instead.
