Becca Balint Will Be Vermont’s First Woman and Openly Gay Representative in Congress

Democrat Becca Balint has defeated Republican Liam Madden and won the Vermont at-large congressional race.

Balint’s victory was not unexpected in blue Vermont, but her election still marks history. The newly-elected representative will be the first woman and first openly gay person Vermont sends to Congress.

The seasoned legislator was widely seen as the progressive candidate throughout the primary and election season. Balint has served in Vermont’s state Senate since 2015, and was the first lesbian elected to the chamber. In 2017, she was selected as majority leader of the Democratic caucus, before becoming the first woman to serve as president pro tempore in 2021.

Balint’s campaign focused not only on her time in the state legislature, but on how her personal background has guided her worldviews.

Embroiled in depression as she first came out, Balint sought a therapist who would accept her sexual orientation. “It absolutely saved my life,” she said, “and if it had been handled differently, I honestly don’t know if I would be here.” Years later, she finally told her parents, who offered to take her to a therapist to “fix” her—an offer she refused.

Now, as an elected official, Balint has joined efforts in the state legislature to support transgender youth seeking medical care, and to prohibit conversion therapy.

Balint was born in a U.S. Army hospital in Germany, where her Hungarian Jewish father was stationed at the time. His father, Balint’s grandfather, was killed during the Holocaust, Balint wrote in a personal blog, when he fell behind on a forced march after trying to help another ailing prisoner.

“One ongoing toll of the Holocaust and indeed of all totalitarian regimes…is that we start to doubt our neighbors’ basic humanity. We come to believe it’s safer to keep them at a distance because people can sometimes be so horribly callous,” Balint wrote. “This is the family story I am trying to change. I believe strong neighbors make strong democracy.”

In an interview Tuesday evening, former President Donald Trump said that if Republicans he endorsed do well, he should “get all the credit”—but if those candidates lose, he “should not be blamed at all.”

The serial fraudster and inciter-of-riots complained that he always seems to be the one who takes the heat if things go awry for Republicans. “Usually what would happen is when they do well I won’t be given any credit, and if they do badly they will blame everything on me.”

Though Trump may complain, he has still enjoyed playing kingmaker for the party, inviting candidates across the country to beg his favor. “In many cases I told people to run, and they ran and they turned out to be very good candidates,” Trump said.

If Republicans do suffer losses this election, Trump does deserve some of the blame. On Monday, he declared he may announce his 2024 bid for president as soon as November 15.

He is self-obsessed enough to flirt with a presidential announcement in the lead-up to a midterm election that is already meant to be a slam dunk for Republicans. He’s spending time at candidate rallies testing new nicknames for possible primary opponents, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. All that only serves to remind midterm voters why they voted him out of office just two years ago.

Conspiracy theories of election rigging are already swirling Tuesday after some Arizona polling stations reported issues with their vote-counting machines.

About 20 percent of polling stations in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, were experiencing problems with their tabulator machines, according to election officials. The ballot would not run through the tabulator, but officials were prepared for such a scenario.

The Maricopa County Elections Board explained on its official Twitter account that people could still vote by dropping their ballots in a lockbox attached to the machines or by going to another one of the 223 voting stations.

But right-wing figures seized on the report anyway, accusing the state government of trying to rig the election in favor of Democrats.

“Reports are coming in from Arizona that the Voting Machines are not properly working in predominately Republican/Conservative areas,” former President Donald Trump said on TruthSocial. “Here we go again? The people will not stand for it!!”

Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, both extreme-right figures and former advisors to Trump, accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, with Miller complaining about a “third world voting system.”

Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward, who is being investigated for her role in the attempted January 6 coup to steal the election, tried to cast doubt on all of the tabulators’ accuracy. “How did all of the machines in Maricopa miraculously work over the last few days when they were ‘tested & certified’ with test votes & test ballots…but now they won’t work for real voters & real ballots?” she tweeted.

Others have accused Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state who is also running for governor, of being behind the issue.

“The problems you are witnessing in Maricopa County are thanks to two people who are on the ballot today: KATIE HOBBS & ADRIAN FONTES,” tweeted Tyler Bowyer, a member of conservative group Turning Point USA, also referring to the Democratic candidate for Arizona secretary of state.

Hobbs’ opponent MAGA Republican opponent Kari Lake, who continues to refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election, has retweeted multiple posts blaming Hobbs for the problems.

Hobbs, of course, does not oversee the technical maintenance of voting machines, and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is made up primarily of Republicans.

Arizona is a crucial swing state that, in a major twist, went for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The state has struggled particularly hard with election fraud conspiracies as Trump continues to falsely claim for years that the election was stolen from him.

After the 2020 election, the state’s Republican Party supported a massive recount of the votes that ultimately found no evidence of voter fraud. Ironically, the recount was demanded in part because Trump and other Republicans claimed the electronic voting machines had been hacked.

Right-wing media is painting a picture of insurgency on Election Day…from the left.

Conservative news outlets and media figures have been priming voters to reject tight Democratic victories—or any outcomes they don’t like—on Tuesday.

“Bottom line: Democrats absolutely cannot lose tomorrow’s elections,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson told his viewers Monday night. “So with that in mind, they’re already preparing the rest of us for election theft, which if you don’t want a civil war, you shouldn’t complain about.”

Fox News also slammed White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre for saying that it could take a few days to count all the votes cast Tuesday, quoting a conservative think tank fellow as saying, “This is not…how it’s supposed to work.”

In fact, that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. A record-high number of people, at least 44 million, voted early. States have different laws on when poll workers can start counting early votes, let alone ones cast on Election Day, meaning results will be released at varying times.

But far-right news outlets are trying to argue that delays will mean Democrats are rigging the outcome.

The Federalist praised so-called “election observers” who have been turning up to ballot boxes and voting stations, ostensibly to make sure there is no voter fraud. The outlet also accused the Department of Justice of deploying federal officials to stop the poll watchers in the government’s “latest election-rigging scheme.”

In reality, the self-appointed watchers, some of whom show up armed, have been accused of voter intimidation. Arizona has filed 18 counts of voter intimidation with the DOJ, and North Carolina has also reported both voter intimidation and interference.

Steve Bannon, a former advisor to Donald Trump, also accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, via mail-in ballots. “We’re going to contest all of this. Only legitimate, certifiable chain-of-custody votes count, OK?” he said.

And despite being the only party with members that continue to lie about the 2020 election results, many right-wingers are also saying the Democrats will not only reject any midterm losses but will also get violent over them.

In addition to Carlson’s cry of civil war, The Federalist warned Democrats will not cede power “peacefully,” and Bannon said the left will get “‘nasty.”

But chillingly, it is not the left that appears to be preparing for violence. Reporter Ben Collins, who covers disinformation and extremism, tweeted that “on extremist pro-Trump forums, they are not talking about voting.”

People in those forums have been discussing preparing firearms for when results come out.

Right-wing media has started Election Day spreading false claims that Democrats will try and steal midterm outcomes.

The 2022 midterms are highly contentious, as Democrats fight to maintain control of Congress. At least 44 million people voted early, according to a report by the United States Elections Project, a record high.

Christina Bobb, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump (who started the terrifying new trend of rejecting valid election results), said Monday night she expects results no later than Wednesday morning.

“There should absolutely be a result no later than the middle of the night, early Wednesday morning,” she told Right Side Broadcasting Network. “I think those areas that don’t have a result, it’s gonna look very suspicious.”

She accused Democrats of creating fraudulent ballots in the 2020 election and of using the Covid-19 pandemic as a cover.

In reality, the pandemic forced states to dramatically expand mail-in voting, creating delays because the paper ballots had to be checked and counted by hand.

Every state has different laws on when poll workers can start counting votes, meaning results will be released at varying times.

Republicans are already trying to seize on those differences to sow doubt about any outcomes they don’t like.

Republican lawmakers have spent the entire run-up to the midterms priming voters to reject tight Democratic victories. Many tried to sow suspicion around the Pennsylvania result, after the state’s acting secretary of the commonwealth said it could take days to count all the votes.

But the thing is, under Pennsylvania state law, poll workers can’t even start counting votes until the morning of Election Day. And as writer James Surowiecki pointed out, the “Republican state legislature will not allow early votes to be counted or even pre-canvassed” before then.

“Then right wingers use that legislature-required delay as evidence of something nefarious. It’s ridiculous.”