Even after over 20 years working in law enforcement, Latina, lesbian, former migrant farm worker Lupe Valdez was seen as the underdog in her race for Dallas County Sheriff. However, the 2004 vote swung in her favor and was elected as the first Democrat in the position in 25 years and the first woman elected to the role by a 17,000 vote margin. Valdez also made history as the first out lesbian Latina to be elected as a county sheriff anywhere in the United States. Valdez was reelected four more times and unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Texas in 2018. 

In its 2004 Annual Report, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund emphasized its close partnership with the Valdez campaign:

Lupe Valdez won a stunning victory in Dallas County, Texas, where she was elected Sheriff. Lupe, who has over 20 years of experience in law enforcement, promised to bring integrity back to the office that had been embroiled in scandal over the misuse of funds. In the final weeks of the campaign, Lupe’s opponent was accused of violating campaign finance law, which, combined with Lupe’s experience and appeal, was enough to put her over the top. Lupe and her campaign manager attended the Leadership Institute’s Candidate & Campaign Training in April and received additional strategic advice throughout her campaign. Victory Fund donors provided $10,000 to her campaign.

‍

In 2004, a coordinated and largely preemptive backlash to the idea of marriage equality was well underway, resulting in many states voting on the issue on their November ballots. LGBTQ+ Victory Fund operatives were concerned that, with anti-LGBTQ+ amendments on the same ballot as LGBTQ+ candidates, they should fear for the worst. 

Oregon was one of the states weighing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in the same year that it was set to elect appointed gay State Supreme Court Justice Rives Kistler to a full term. His partisan identity as a Democrat was of little comfort in a state that presidential candidate Al Gore had won by less than 7,000 votes four years earlier. The Oregon Christian Coalition – one of the groups behind the marriage amendment – supported Kistler’s conservative opponent. Polling leading into the elections rightly troubled marriage equality advocates and Kistler supporters alike. 

Rives Kistler had studied law at Georgetown University in the 1980s and clerked in the Fifth Circuit as well as at the U.S. Supreme Court. He worked in private practice and then as a state prosecutor in Oregon before being appointed by Governor John Kitzhaber to the Oregon Court of Appeals in 1999. Governor Ted Kulongoski appointed Kistler to the Oregon Supreme Court in 2003, making him the first out gay member of any state supreme court in U.S. history. 

“I didn’t want to be known as the gay judge. I’d hope to be known as the good judge,” Kistler told Newsweek in a 2004 profile of his race.

Kistler largely got his wish: his sexual orientation wasn’t a major issue in his campaign. (The Christian Coalition even told USA Today in 2006 that it didn’t have a problem with gay judges per se – just those pushing a “pro-homosexual agenda.”) Though the anti-gay marriage amendment passed with 57 percent of voters approving, Justice Kistler won his election with over 60 percent of the vote. 

Kistler ran unopposed in 2010 for another six-year term and again in 2016. He chose to retire in 2018 after over two decades on the court. Coincidentally, Kistler’s retirement allowed the country’s first out governor, Kate Brown, to appoint his replacement. 

Over the course of his tenure, Kistler earned the respect of his colleagues. “Justice Kistler is a brilliant thinker who cares deeply about the law and the people it affects,” said Supreme Court Chief Justice Martha Walters. 

Kistler's 2010 campaign ad: 

North Carolina had never elected an out LGBTQ+ candidate to its state legislature until Julia Boseman’s state Senate run in 2004. A one-term New Hanover County Commissioner, Boseman took on incumbent Republican Sen. Woody White with LGBTQ Victory Fund’s endorsement. She won her race by 885 votes, shattering North Carolina’s lavender ceiling and becoming the first out LGBTQ+ state legislator in the state.  

In 2004, for the first time in its history, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund endorsed two transgender candidates: Robert Haaland for San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Amanda Simpson for Arizona state House. While transgender candidates had long sought public office, it was the first time two such candidates met Victory Fund’s viability criteria, convincing the board that they could indeed win their races. 

Unfortunately, neither Simpson nor Haaland prevailed, but both outperformed expectations and opened the door for more transgender candidates to run.