Weirdly Mixed Night For Gay Republicans

There aren't going to be all that many Democratic freshmen next year. Seth Moulton's win in MA-06 yesterday was one of the bright spots. The district is the northeast corner of the state where the 495 and the 95 join up and head up into New Hampshire. It starts in the Boston's northern outer suburbs-- Lynn, Saugus, Wakefield, Burlington and Bedford and shoots north to Salem, Gloucester, Ipswich, Newbury and Merrimac. It's been John Tierney's district since 1997 but Moulton beat him in a primary on September 9. Although every poll showed Tierney winning, Moulton had closed to within 3 points the weekend before the election and then won 36,575 (50.8%) to 28,915 (40.1%). Last night he won 149,449 (54.65%) to 111,848 (40.90%), beating Tisei far more convincingly than Tierney had in 2012 (48-47% with less than 4,000 votes separating them).

On their October 15 FEC reports Moulton was seriously out of cash compared to Tisei-- $109,572 for the Democrat and $714,104 left for the Republican. The biggest outside expenditures on behalf of Tisei were $997,339 from a right-wing operation calling themselves the American Unity PAC; $700,212 from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; $256,237 from the National Association of Realtors; $494,832 from the NRCC's Congressional Leadership Fund; $151,158 from a shady Big Oil funded 501c called Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions. Meanwhile Moulton's biggest backers are the VoteVets PAC ($4,036,122), and the DCCC and their House Majority PAC (for a combined $782,570). VoteVets spent $3,001,776 last week.

The last 2 polls, one by Emerson College and one by Republican polling firm ;Øptimus, both last week, showed an extremely tight race with Tisei ahead but within the margin of error.

One of the oddities of this race is that the Republican, Richard Tisei came out of the closet and campaigned as openly gay. The rabidly homophobic National Organization for Marriage, a regular part of the Republican coalition, endorsed Moulton, not because they like him but to stop Tisei. NOM president Brian Brown told his members and supporters to vote for Moulton because it's better to have a Democrat-- even a pro-gay one with a gay brother-- than a gay Republican in Congress who opposes "the values of marriage, family, and life." Moulton told NOM to take their endorsement and shove it up their asses.

“Seth Moulton fundamentally disagrees with everything NOM stands for and has long said that equality is the civil rights fight of our generation,” said Carrie Rankin, Moulton’s communications director. “Fighting against groups, like NOM, that deny equality as a basic human right will be a priority of Seth’s in Congress.” Rankin noted that Moulton has a gay brother and Moulton has said, “It’s fundamentally wrong that he and I don’t share the same rights just because of who he is.”

The other openly gay Republican who ran-- Carl DeMaio in San Diego (in a D+2 district)-- ousted New Dem Scott Peters, 50.26- 49.74%, despite two gay sex scandals breaking about him within a month of each other and despite homophobic GOP congressmen urging Republicans to vote against him.