Carl DeMaio concedes in California congressional race
Carl DeMaio conceded Sunday his race for the U.S. House of Representatives, ending the possibility that this election could witness an openly gay Republican elected to Congress for the first time.
“It is increasingly clear we will fall short when the final votes are tabulated,” DeMaio told The San Diego Union-Tribune. “Because I care about San Diego, I wish Mr. Peters the best and hope he will endeavor to represent the district well.”
DeMaio was attempting to unseat Democratic Rep. Scott Peters in California’s 52nd Congressional District. On election night, the race was too close to call, with DeMaio leading by a few hundred votes. But five days later, with further mail and provisional ballots counted, Peters leads DeMaio by 4,771 votes with more still to be counted.
DeMaio was one of two openly gay Republicans hoping to make history on Election Day. Richard Tisei lost for the second consecutive time his bid for the U.S. House of Representatives in Massachusetts’s 6th Congressional District. Democrat Seth Moulton, who defeated Rep. John Tierney in the September primary, won 54.6 percent of the vote to Tisei’s 40.9 percent. Two years prior, Tisei lost narrowly to Tierney 47.1 percent to 48.3 percent. Many credited the win by a vulnerable Tierney, whose wife was mired in a federal tax scandal, to Obama and Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren being at the top of the 2012 ballot.
Although Tisei was endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and praised by the Human Rights Campaign, DeMaio received far less love from LGBT-rights groups. DeMaio accused such groups of pretending to be nonpartisan, while DeMaio was accused of only standing up for the LGBT community when it was politically expedient. Both men were targeted by social conservatives, with the National Organization for Marriage going so far as to endorse their pro-LGBT Democratic opponents.
In the weeks before the election, the race in California grew increasingly negative as DeMaio faced accusations from two former staffers of sexual harassment. DeMaio denied those accusations, and in turn accused the Peters campaign of dirty politics.
DeMaio spokesperson Dave McCulloch told The San Diego Union-Tribune that those allegations likely caused DeMaio’s defeat. “The false smears impacted or caused an ick factor to our campaign, which we believe turned off evangelical Christians and a group that normally would support Carl,” McCulloch said. “That factor was likely the reason we came up short.”
Court documents unsealed Friday show there was more collaboration than previously known between DeMaio’s first accuser, who was also a suspect in a break-in at DeMaio’s campaign headquarters, and the Peters campaign.
No openly gay Republican has ever been elected to Congress, although two Republicans — former Reps. Steve Gunderson of Wisconsin and Jim Kolbe of Arizona — have come out while serving in Congress. Gunderson did not run for reelection in 1996 and Kolbe did not run for reelection in 2006.
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