BURLINGTON, Vt. — A former energy company executive from Vermont has come a step closer to becoming the nation's first transgender governor. Christine Hallquist swept to victory in Tuesday’s crowded gubernatorial primary, besting three other Democrats — including a 14-year-old boy — to become the party’s nominee. She is the first trans person to win a major party’s nomination for governor. "Tonight we made history, and I'm so honored to be ... part of this historical moment," Hallquist said to a room full of clapping fans at her election-night party in Burlington. "I'm so proud to be the face of the Democrats tonight." Hallquist will face Republican incumbent Phil Scott in November. Scott’s popularity has waned in recent months, but he managed to beat his Republican primary challenger by a healthy margin on Tuesday. The most specific parts of Hallquist’s platform follow a now-familiar progressive model: a $15 minimum wage, Medicare for all and free higher education. She is also campaigning on an aggressive expansion of renewable electricity and high-speed broadband access across the state. Hallquist said the anti-transgender policies of the Trump administration, including the attempt to ban trans people from serving in the military and the reversal of Obama-era protections for trans people in gender-segregated facilities, were factors in her decision to run for office. “This isn’t something I was thinking about doing,” Hallquist explained. “I say, in the physics world, for every action, there’s an opposite and equal reaction. This is a reaction to 2016.” She said she hopes “our children and our children’s children look back at 2018 and say, ‘Hey, that’s when we all got in, and our democracy survived a despot.’” Hallquist’s past career as CEO of the Vermont Electric Cooperative gave her a major boost going into Tuesday’s contest. She’s credited with turning the electric utility around, and a poll found she had the highest name recognition of all the Democratic hopefuls in the gubernatorial race. On the campaign trail, she criticized Gov. Scott’s high rate of vetoed legislation, which she called a “leadership failure” and a product of his “focus on division.” “We are a very loving state, so when people are focusing on division, people don’t like it,” Hallquist said. Hallquist said she’s confident she has a good chance against Scott in November. “It’s pretty clear he’s vulnerable,” she said. “I think he lost support from both the gun advocates and the Democrats who might have voted for him before.” One element of Hallquist’s platform that generated buzz leading up to the primary is a program for rural internet expansion. Beforing the polls closed on Tuesday, Hallquist visited Brighton, a small town in Vermont’s poor northeast, where she said, “Rural America is facing a problem right now.” “You’re seeing increasing rates of poverty, flights to the city, an aging demographic,” she said. “The same thing happened in the 1930s, when cities had electricity and rural America did not.” That story of rural electrification and the way it transformed Vermont in the 1930s is a major theme of Hallquist’s campaign, and it featured prominently in her advertisements. The modern-day version of stringing electric lines is stringing fiber-optic internet cables, and Hallquist, who formerly led the Vermont Electricity Cooperative, knows a thing or two about infrastructure. “You just run it on the same poles and wires, that’s why this thing works. It’s just another wire,” she said. “If you use your utility buckets, labor and equipment, you can do it for a third of the cost.” Dustin Tanner, a Democratic nominee for the Vermont state Senate who ran uncontested on Tuesday, said he voted for Hallquist. A self-described “Bernie-wing” Democrat, Tanner said there are parts of Hallquist’s platform that are “a little conservative” for him. However, he said her plan for rural broadband connectivity was a main reason why he voted for her in Tuesday’s primary. Tanner, whose day job is in the information technology department of a local school, said he’s keenly aware of how crucial it is for Vermonters to have fast internet. Liz Gamache, the former mayor of St. Albans and a Hallquist booster, attributed Hallquist’s wide support in the state to “lots of word of mouth.” “It goes a long way in this state,” Gamache said. “We see each other in the grocery store; we are one or two people removed from just about everybody.” Former Houston, Texas, Mayor Annise Parker, now president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political action committee that endorsed Hallquist, called her primary victory a “defining moment in the movement for trans equality.” “Yet Vermont voters chose Christine not because of her gender identity, but because she is an open and authentic candidate with a long history of service to the state, and who speaks to the issues most important to voters,” Parker said in a statement sent to NBC News. “When voters head to the polls this November, we are confident Vermonters will make her the first openly trans governor in the nation.” FOLLOW NBC OUT ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM<doc-sep>[Read more about Republican governors in Democratic states.] Mr. Scott’s popularity fell, however, especially among conservatives, after he signed gun control measures this year. Still, a poll in July by public media organizations in the state found two-thirds of Vermonters supported the law, and nearly half of Democrats had a favorable opinion of Mr. Scott. Only 18 percent of Democratic respondents in the same poll said they had a favorable opinion of Ms. Hallquist, and 55 percent did not yet know who she was. That may change now that Ms. Hallquist is the nominee, and she is likely to draw national attention — and fund-raising dollars — because of the historic potential of her candidacy. “She’ll raise more money and her message will get out there more,” said Eric Davis, an emeritus professor at Vermont’s Middlebury College. “Even if she doesn’t get elected governor, the greatest contribution of her campaign could be to raise awareness about the issues transgender people face.” Before she ran for governor, Ms. Hallquist spent 12 years as the chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative, an in-state power utility that she helped to bring back from near ruin. Her transition from male to female took place in 2015, while she was at the helm of the company, and was the subject of a documentary film made by her son. As a candidate, she made it part of her stump speech, drawing knowing laughs from her female supporters at a fund-raiser this summer as she talked about what it was like to experience life as a woman for the first time. “I remember the first time after transitioning, a stranger walking by told me to smile — I’m like, ‘Who the heck are you to tell me to smile?’” Ms. Hallquist said. “What my transition has taught me is just how far we have to go.”<doc-sep>She came out as a woman to her wife, Pat, early in their marriage, and opened up to their three children about eight years ago. But it was not until 2015, when she was CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative, that she started publicly identifying as a woman. Local news outlets documented her transition, and she drew national attention as a pioneering example of a business CEO transitioning while in office.<doc-sep>Democrats in Vermont made history on Tuesday after they elected their first transgender candidate for the state governorship. Christine Hallquist, a former energy executive, will become America's first transgender state governor if elected in November's midterms. Ms Hallquist defeated three other candidates, including a 14-year-old boy, to win the Democratic Party nomination on Tuesday. While she made history on Tuesday, Ms Hallquist faces an uphill battle to defeat the Republican incumbent Governor Phil Scott in November's race. But Democrats are hoping a "blue wave" in the midterm elections will lead them to regain at least the House of Representatives, one of Congress' two chambers. Ms Hallquist's nomination comes in a progressive year for US politics already marked by record numbers of lesbian, gay and transgender candidates.<doc-sep>
(Reuters) - Vermont Democrats made Christine Hallquist the first openly transgender person to win a major party nomination for statewide office in U.S. history as she clinched Tuesday’s primary election for governor. She defeated three other Democrats on Tuesday and will take on incumbent Governor Phil Scott, a Republican, in the Nov. 6 general election, unofficial results showed. “I think Vermont is a beacon of hope for the rest of the country,” Hallquist said during an interview with Reuters. “This is what I call expanding our moral compass and that is what I think it represents.” The contest comes at a time of uncertainty for transgender rights, which expanded under the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama. They have been reversed under Republican President Donald Trump’s administration, a victory for religious conservatives who only recognize traditional gender roles. Transgender candidates are hoping to build on the breakthrough year of 2017, when at least 10 won office across the country at levels ranging from state legislator to zoning (town planning) board - the most ever recorded. This year, 43 transgender candidates have run for political office at all levels in the United States, most of them Democrats but a few running as independents, for the Green Party or for nonpartisan offices, according to Logan Casey, a research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Hallquist is the first openly transgender candidate to win a major party nomination for governor or a statewide office of any kind. Slideshow ( 18 images ) The win “is a defining moment in the movement for trans equality,” Annise Parker, president and CEO of LGBTQ Victory Fund, which seeks to elect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender candidates, said in a statement. She enjoys name recognition as the former David Hallquist, the onetime chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative who publicly transitioned to a female identity while leading the power utility in 2015. While many transgender people change their name given at birth upon transition, Hallquist has made David her middle name and speaks comfortably about her previous identity. Hallquist’s transition was documented in “Denial,” a film made by her son Derek. It was originally meant to be a documentary about the Vermont electric company dealing with climate change, but it also became a personal story as Hallquist came out as transgender to Derek during the making of the film. “I’m proud to be a role model for others in ... marginalized communities so they can rise up and be recognized,” Hallquist said. Before Vermont’s election, only four transgender candidates had won primaries in 2018, all for house and senate seats in state legislatures, and have a general election ahead. Seventeen have lost primary or general elections and 21 have yet to face voters, Casey’s research shows. “I love Vermont because we look beyond these surface issues,” Hallquist said. “I just happen to be a leader who is transgender. Vermonters know that. They voted to support me because of what I am going to do for Vermont.” Vermont has a history of being first on gender-related issues. It was the first state to allow civil unions for same-sex couples in 2000 and in 2009 became the first state to legalize gay marriage through the state legislature.