This story originally appeared on The Advocate.
California voters have elected bisexual Democrat Marni von Wilpert to Congress, flipping a Republican-held seat for a civil rights attorney whose breast cancer diagnosis turned the debate over healthcare into a question about her own survival.
The San Diego City Council member defeated Republican Jim Desmond in California’s 48th Congressional District, according to Decision Desk HQ, which called the race at 11:14 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday night.
With 64 percent of votes counted, von Wilpert led Desmond 59 to 41 percent at the time of the call.
Related: Marni von Wilpert had breast cancer. Now she wants to fight for health care in Congress
Her victory adds an out LGBTQ+ member to the House and gives Democrats the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. Redistricting had made the district, which includes parts of San Diego and Riverside counties, more favorable to Democrats.
Von Wilpert campaigned on affordability, workers’ rights, and protecting access to medical care. Then, amid the demands of running for Congress, she became a patient herself.
As The Advocate previously reported, a routine mammogram led to a breast cancer diagnosis. After surgery, she said the cancer was gone, and she would not need chemotherapy. The experience left her thinking about people who could not afford the treatment she had received.
In an October interview with The Advocate, she outlined priorities that included restoring health care funding, strengthening union organizing protections, and passing the Equality Act. She pledged to defend transgender people while keeping voters’ concerns about groceries, gasoline, and medical bills at the center of her campaign.
Her election follows a career spent working where government policy meets people’s daily lives. Von Wilpert served in the Peace Corps in Botswana, helped establish a legal clinic for people facing HIV discrimination in Mississippi, and worked at the National Labor Relations Board.
For her, the threat to LGBTQ+ rights was also personal.
“I believe that trans rights are human rights,” she told The Advocate then.
