AU Alumni Among 2024 Election Winners

AU's Alumni Association congratulates Eagles who ran for and won election in 2024. Former Rising Star Award recipient Sarah McBride, SPA/BA '13, will become the first openly transgender member of Congress, representing her home state of Delaware.

McBride made national headlines in 2012 for coming out as transgender in an op-ed published the day after her term as AU student body president ended. On accepting the university's Rising Star Award in 2018, she said she "cannot repay AU for everything this university has offered me," adding "It is through my experiences here at American that I was able to find not only my voice but my courage."

In 2021, after McBride was elected as the nation's first transgender state senator, she told American University magazine, "It's my hope that my election sends a small but potentially life-saving message to a young trans person that our democracy is big enough for them, that their voice matters, and that they can dream big dreams."

McBride joins four other AU alumni in the United States House of Representatives. Julia Brownley, Kogod/MBA '79, won reelection in California's 26th district. Jim McGovern, CAS/BA '81, SPA/MPA '84, has represented Massachusetts' second district since 1996. And Haley Stevens, SPA/BA '05, CAS/MA '07, won a fourth term representing Michigan's 11th district. Stacey Plaskett, WCL/JD '94, serves as Delegate to the House of Representatives from the US Virgin Islands' at-large district.

More than a dozen AU alumni were elected in state and local races, joining the many others serving their communities across the globe. Congratulations to all these and the many AU Eagles who dream big dreams.