Out gay Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D) will likely lose his race to become his state’s next auditor general, a top watchdog role overseeing tax revenue.
As of 12:18 a.m. EST, Republican Timothy DeFoor is leading Kenyatta 51.8% to 45.2% with 82% of all precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press.
Kenyatta became the first LGBTQ+ person of color to be elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly when he won his 2018 race at the age of 28 in a landslide victory. After receiving compliments from former President Barack Obama, Kenyatta was one of 17 rising star Democrats to deliver the keynote address at the 2020 Democratic National Convention and one of the first three out LGBTQ+ people ever to do so.
“As somebody who inhabits all of these intersections, growing up in an incredibly poor neighborhood to a working poor family, as one of only two openly LGBTQ members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the only one that’s a person of color, I see all the different ways that frankly our systems are broken,” he told LGBTQ Nation last year.