The first openly transgender member of Congress provided a message of hope after president-elect Donald Trump's victory on Tuesday night, after just being elected to the House of Representatives by Delaware's at-large district herself.
"Our challenge, our charge in this moment is to summon our hope, to summon our faith, and to remember that so long as we breathe, we hope," Democrat Sarah McBride told MSNBC.
When asked about what members of the LGBTQ+ community should expect from a second Trump presidency, McBride told MSNBC, "I know how much this win would have meant to me as a young person as I faced a crisis of hope and wondered whether the heart of this nation was big enough to love me, too. And I hope this win sends a message to young people across the country that our democracy is big enough for them, too. That regardless of the results at the top of the ticket, we all have a place in our country."
McBride, who previously served as the national press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign, earned 57.7% of the vote in her district, beating Republican challenger John Whalen III by about 15 points.
"We all belong. And I hope it shows that nothing is truly impossible. But I didn't run to make history. I ran to make a difference for my neighbors here in Delaware and to serve this country that I love," McBride told the outlet.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, major media outlets declared Trump as the winner of the election in the state of Pennsylvania, confirming that he would return for a second term in the White House.
"Look, this is a scary time. And I think for so many people across this country, so many vulnerable people, they are facing their own crisis of hope in this moment," McBride previously told MSNBC's Ana Cabrera. "But I know that the story of this country is the story of our biggest challenges propelling us to take our most significant steps forward."
McBride has frequently criticized the president-elect in the past, noting that his commitments to the LGBTQ+ community repeatedly turn out to be empty promises.
"Donald Trump and Mike Pence have governed the exact same way they campaigned, with bigotry and with bluster. Despite Donald Trump claiming that he would be a friend to the LGBTQ community as president, we've seen the exact opposite from his administration," she said in a 2020 video published by Business Insider.
"In one of his most shameful moves yet, the president, the commander-in-chief, targeted our own troops for his hate and discrimination with an unconstitutional dangerous and discriminatory ban on openly transgender service members," McBride continued in the video, after listing various other instances of the Trump administration failing to protect the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
However, McBride expressed optimism for the future in the interview with MSNBC, stating that organizing as a community would now be more important for the Democratic Party than ever before.
"Together we can turn that hope into historic progress. It's going to be hard. We're going to face challenges. This new administration is dangerous and they will try to take back. But together, we are still unstoppable," she told MSNBC.
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