Maura Healy, the first openly gay US governor

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Democrat Maura Healy is the first openly gay woman to be elected governor in the US state of Massachusetts, an event she called “historic”

Democrat Maura Healy is the first openly gay woman to be elected governor of the US state of Massachusetts in midterm elections, an event she called “historic”.

Healy, 51, comfortably beat Republican Jeff Deal, who was backed by former President Donald Trump, in the state that has been held for eight years by Republican Charlie Baker, who was not running.

“I’m proud to be the first woman and the first gay person to be elected governor,” Haley, who was congratulated by President Joe Biden by phone, said with a big smile at a rally in Boston.

“Tonight I want to say something to every little girl and every young person in the LGBTI community: I hope tonight shows you that you can be anything you want to be. Tonight we did something historic,” she said excitedly.

The Human Rights Campaign, an American organization that defends the rights of members of the LGBTQI community, immediately welcomed in a statement the “historic” electoral victory of Healy, “who became the first lesbian governor of the country.”

Healy’s victory was highly predictable, as she has consistently come in first in the polls and is well-respected as a human rights advocate and, since 2014, the state’s attorney general, a position equivalent at the state level to that of attorney general at the federal level.

Besides, her lieutenant governor will also be a woman, Kim Driscoll.

It is the first time that two women will govern an American state.

At the same time, pending the results in the state of Oregon, another gay woman, Tina Kotek, may be elected governor.

Read more: Mid-term elections in the USA: Malliotakis, Bilirakis, Pappas, Sarbanis are re-elected

For the first time in U.S. history, LGBTI people ran in Tuesday’s midterm elections in all 50 states, a record that could affect the country’s political landscape widely.

About 678 members of the LGBTI community ran in this election in which Americans voted to renew the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate, as well as a number of state governors and local elected officials.

That’s a nearly 20 percent increase from the previous election, according to an analysis by the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which helps fund their election campaigns.

About 90% of these candidates are Democrats.

In the conservative southern US state of Arkansas, a woman will also govern for the first time. This is Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, who was the spokesperson of the White House from 2017 to 2019 during the presidency of Donald Trump.

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