Valentina Gomez, the Missouri Republican who chased anti-LGBTQ+ clout with a campaign ad chiding voters not to be “weak and gay,” has officially lost her bid to become Secretary of State — and in truly embarrassing fashion.
In Tuesday’s state GOP primary, Gomez drew just 7.4% of the vote, finishing with less than 48,000 votes in total. She placed a distant sixth in the primary race, losing to state Sen. Denny Hoskins, who will go on to face Democrat Barbara Phifer in the general election this November.
Of all the reasons Gomez lost her bid for state office, being too quiet about her beliefs was certainly not among them. In May, Gomez received national attention for a video ad on social media in which she told voters they could “be anything [they] want” in the U.S., “so don’t be weak and gay. Stay fucking hard.” But her video didn’t receive the type of reception Gomez was fishing for, partly because of the camp of it all — Gomez, perhaps unintentionally, filmed the video while jogging in St. Louis’ historic Soulard district, a longtime home to LGBTQ+ communities and queer nightlife.
That anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, along with campaign declarations that she would protect Missouri from the “transgender industry,” did not seem to meaningfully boost Gomez’s outcome this week. Gomez had not yet posted a message of concession on Wednesday morning; her last video, following the close of polling in Missouri, thanked her supporters and declared she would be spending the night at a “pedophile catch party” with I Fight For Kids, a far-right vigilante group which claims to organize child predator sting operations, mainly through Grindr.
Gomez also faced a last-minute brouhaha in her campaign on Monday when her brother Jonathan Gomez, then an aide to Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop who had been appointed to the city’s LGBTQ+ task force, was fired from his position for failing to distance himself from his sister’s anti-LGBTQ+ remarks. Valentina Gomez has vowed a “huge lawsuit” for wrongful termination, while Fulop claimed his aides are employed “at-will” and can be terminated for any reason, according to the Jersey City Times.
But while Gomez is no longer in the picture for Secretary of State, Missouri will still need to contend with an anti-LGBTQ+ Republican candidate in Denny Hoskins. Currently a state senator, Hoskins co-sponsored two bills that banned gender-affirming medical care for trans youth and required them to play on sports teams matching their birth-assigned gender, both of which became law last year. Hoskins also carries his own legal battles into this race, though: in April, he was one of three senators named in a defamation lawsuit after falsely naming a Kansas man as both an undocumented immigrant and the perpetrator of a recent mass shooting.
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