Jared Polis is officially the first openly gay Governor of Colorado. In fact, he’s made history as the first openly gay man to win a U.S. gubernatorial election. He is also the first Jewish governor of Colorado.
Many expected Polis to win, as he already has a strong record in politics, serving as U.S. Representative for Colorado's Second Congressional District, so while it isn’t the biggest relief of the night, it’s definitely great news.
Polis is big on immigration reform, wants Medicare-for-all, wants to increase state-level legislative support for Colorado’ s marijuana program, stronger gun laws, and wants to seriously limit fracking in his state.
He had a double-digit lead in some important groups, including women, people under 40, and unaffiliated voters.
While Polis certainly hasn’t hidden his sexuality, he hasn’t necessarily made it a selling point. In talking to ABC News, he said:
“I really think that we are at our best as a nation, as a society, when our elected officials are fully representative of the people they're elected to work for. That means we should have our communities of color represented, women represented, the LGBTQ community represented. And the more diversity we have in elected leadership, responsible positions, I think the better result we'll have."
This win is also important for Colorado as a state. Colorado was once known as the “hate state.” The state has a large Christian population, many of whom are politically conservative. The now infamous “gay wedding cake” court case began in Colorado and made its way all the way to the Supreme Court, where the court ruled in favor of the baker who refused to bake a cake for a same-sex couple because of their religious beliefs. But even prior to the wedding cake case, anti-LGBTQ measures dominated the state for decades.
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