Democratic Rep. Scott Peters will retain his House seat in California's 52nd district, after an electoral challenge by out gay Republican Carl DeMaio.
The race was too close to call as of election night, but Roll Call reports that a new batch of absentee and provisional ballots were collected, putting Peters ahead of DeMaio by 4,500 votes. While House Republicans had stumped for DeMaio, he was also plagued by scandals in which former staff members alleged that he had sexually harassed them.
DeMaio was one of three Republicans to run for Congress in this election cycle. Richard Tisei of Massachusetts who lost his race on Tuesday night, and Dan Innis of New Hampshire, who lost the Republican primary in September.
Whether DeMaio won would have determined whether the same number of LGBT members kept their seats in the House. With Mike Michaud of Maine leaving Congress to make a failed bid for governor, to keep seven LGBTs in Congress, results required at least one win from the round of new LGBT candidates in races across the country. But out congressional hopefuls Clay Aiken in North Carolina, Sean Eldridge in New York, and Louie Minor in Texas, each lost their races on Tuesday. The six remaining incumbents, all Democrats, held onto their seats: Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Mark Takano of California, Jared Polis of Colorado, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, and David Cicilline of Rhode Island.
