This story originally appeared on The Advocate.
Isaac James took in last week’s election results from a bar in Washington, D.C. The victories of pro-LGBTQ+ candidates across the United States struck him as more than cause for excitement.
“It felt like a vindication,” he told The Advocate.
That’s because James spent months coordinating a voter outreach campaign as executive director of OutVote, a group founded in 2024 to strengthen voting among LGBTQ+ young people. His team organized meetups and campaigns nationwide, focusing on swing districts in Iowa, Michigan, and North Carolina.
“We had a big watch party with a lot of OutVote supporters in D.C. Over 100 people joined us,” James said. “The excitement, I hadn’t seen anything like that. It felt like something I’d been waiting for for a long time.”
During the November 3 general election, pro-LGBTQ+ candidates won in each race. Christina Bohannan claimed victory in Iowa’s 1st congressional district. Will Lawrence will represent Michigan’s 7th district. And Jamie Ager will take office in North Carolina’s 11th district.
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According to OutVote, the staff helped register more than 6,000 new voters this election, and its online content reached more than 2.6 million people. The team included 22 fellows and 12 organizers on the ground who coordinated the campaigns locally, James said.
“This year, we’ve really transformed our impact and leaned into scaling up our programming,” James said. “Especially in these districts where we thought that young queer and trans voters could make the difference where it mattered the most.”
OutVote was launched in part to dispel the idea that young people are less interested in politics or less civically engaged, James said. The team wanted to prove that, given the opportunity, LGBTQ+ young people, especially, would turn out to support LGBTQ+ rights and progressive policies on things like healthcare and affordability.
“Young LGBTQ+ voters turned out for candidates who shared their values,” James said.
This year marked the first general election OutVote worked on with a full staff, James said. He said the success of local, peer-to-peer organizing in this year’s races reaffirmed the approach for future elections.
“We're going to keep investing in the youth-led model that we saw work this cycle, and think about other states where we could expand our impact,” James said.
In the meantime, James said the team at OutVote is still riding the high of last week’s win.
LGBTQ+ young voters can feel like “the minority of a minority,” James said. “But really, it’s this growing voting bloc that has the power to swing results in American politics.”
