Victory Fund's Annise Parker - Metro Weekly - July 16 2020

selves to the president or running against him. And it’s destroying
that sense of “all politics is local.”
PARKER: And that is certainly not what we teach them at Victory.
Now, Donald Trump has been the best recruiter for Democratic
candidates at every level of the ballot you could possibly hope
for. They may have been inspired because they’re so appalled by
him and his policies. But the ones who win are the ones who find
the appropriate sort of local issues and offer a plan that voters
can identify with.
In nonpartisan years, it’s a very different feel, but this is a very
partisan year. If you're running as a Democrat, you’re expected
to be anti-Trump. And if you’re running as a Republican, I
think you have to kiss up. But because of decades of partisan
gerrymandering, we don't have very many seats at the federal
level, congressional seats, for example, that are in play. You can
play along the margins, but because of the way we redistricted,
there's not a lot a candidate can do, which is [why] it's big news
when we flip a seat red to blue or blue to red.
MW: Is it harder nowadays to find LGBTQ Republicans who can
meet those criteria? It seems there are fewer out Republicans
attempting to run, and that more LGBTQ people are identifying
with the Democratic Party in this current environment.
PARKER: Well, way more than 80 percent of our LGBTQ elected
officials are Democrats. It’s an interesting fact. If you go to our
website “Out for America,” where you can sort by party affiliation,
there are more trans elected officials than there are openly
LGBTQ Republican elected officials in America. And nearly all
of our self-identified Republicans are elected in nonpartisan
down-ballot races. Because as you mentioned, it is so difficult
to get through Republican primaries. It was bad before Trump,
but they have become absolutely toxic for LGBTQ candidates. So
they're not running. Or they're not running openly.
We work hard to endorse Republicans. Our standards as an
organization are that you have to be openly LGBT. Candidates
have to believe in some level of a right to privacy, which includes
the right to abortion. Some of our candidates only believe
in it after rape and incest, all the way
to others who support the full Planned
Parenthood position. And they have to be
fully trans-inclusive. We have declined to
endorse some who do not believe that gender identity is their
issue to care about.
It’s difficult for a lot of Republicans because we are prochoice.
We ask them in their hearts, “Can you find a place here
where you can define yourself in a way that we can support
you?” But that is a hurdle in terms of seeking our endorsement.
We train them, whether or not they can ever sign our pledge and
be an endorsed candidate. And we’ll do our best to sustain them
because we believe that our democracy is better when we're in
both parties and we're represented everywhere.
MW: What do you think accounts for the increase in the number of
transgender candidates running for office?
PARKER: Well, I would say success breeds success. And it’s
because the more we win, and the more we talk about the ones
who win, the more they feel like they might have a chance. But
the other factor is that the trans community has been under
such attack by the right. You know, they still attack the gay and
lesbian community. But really, a lot of the worst bills have been
anti-trans bills. And the Trump administration is virulently
anti-trans. And so if you have any self-respect and you're under
attack, you're going to stand up for yourself.
MW: We’re also seeing a number of LGBTQ people of color being
successful in their races this cycle.
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PARKER: We were among the first people to get behind [congressional
candidates] Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones, as well
as [New York State Senate candidate] Jabari Brisport, whose
race still hasn't been called, but we think he'll be there, too. It is
important to us that the candidates that we support are reflective
of America. And interestingly, we have data going back quite a
few years, in terms of who we’ve endorsed. Just in the last few
years and since we've been publishing our “Out for America”
report and stats on our endorsed candidates, the LGBTQ people
who run — not just the ones who we support — are three times
as diverse as the general pool of candidates.
Victory has specific programs to increase the number of candidates
of color which are available on the Institute’s website.
We work hard to increase that number. From the standpoint of
Pete Buttigieg running for president, and everybody said, “Oh
well, he's doing really well in Iowa and New Hampshire, but
black people in the South will never vote for someone who’s
openly gay.” I'm here to tell you that’s not true, but what will
make even more of a difference is that if we have more and more
open candidates of color, officials of color at the highest levels,
including Mondaire and Ritchie and advocates who will get out
and dispel that myth.
MW: Obviously, it's not an elected position, but will we see an out
LGBTQ person in a presidential cabinet, as opposed to a “cabinet-level
position”?
PARKER: We absolutely expect in a Biden administration there
will be. And we fully expected that, had there been a Clinton
administration, there would have been as well. There's no doubt
in our minds.
MW: What do you think is the next frontier in LGBTQ politics?
PARKER: Pete Buttigieg was a game changer in a lot of ways.
He wasn't the first LGBTQ candidate for president. That was
Fred Karger, who ran eight years ago in Obama's re-elect as a
Republican. But he was more of an insurgent candidate and the
party did everything they could to keep him out.
What was fascinating to watch in the Pete Buttigieg campaign
— and we ultimately endorsed
him, but we made him wait for it for six
months, and he had to prove himself — is
that he was treated like any other candidate
by the party in the primary. Sure, I’m certain that there are
people who would never have supported him and didn't support
him because he’s openly gay. But in terms of the party apparatus,
it was completely available to him. And the next time someone
runs from our community, that will be the expectation. And we’ll
eventually get there on the Republican side as well.
One of our goals at Victory is to make sure that there is a
deep pool, a bench, of candidates. Right now, we have two U.S.
senators, two governors, two attorneys general, a handful of
statewide elected officials. That’s not a deep enough bench to be
presidential material, to be vice presidential candidates. So what
is the next big milestone? To have a bench of 20 or 30 people, big
city mayors, statewide elected officials with a national profile,
who can really step up.
Pete did an amazing job. He’s actually got great political skills
and was a phenomenal candidate. But he had to work really hard
to go from a mayor of a mid-sized city with a kind of hard name
to pronounce to a presidential contender. And so, one of our
goals is to make sure that the next one to make that leap doesn’t
have to work quite as hard.
Learn more about The Victory Fund by calling 202-VICTORY
(842-8679) or visiting www.victoryfund.org.
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JULY 16, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM