Kristin Seale is the Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania’s 168th House District against incumbent Christopher Quinn (who did not respond to PGN interview requests). She is also out as a queer woman.
Seale, currently the director of the Rose Tree Media School Board, is looking to be the first woman to represent the 168th. Her key priorities for the district include more funding for education, healthcare and environmental issues.
How have you reached out to voters?
It’s been a very lean, grassroots campaign so far. I’m really fortunate that I was knocking on doors last year to get elected for school board, and the school district is sort of the heart of the 168th district. We knocked on as many doors as we could and had as many conversations as we possibly could with people in the community. I managed to win the primary by 65 votes. We didn’t have the Democratic Party endorsement and we didn’t have a lot of money, but nobody can outwork us. It has been what has carried us through now that I’m up against a Republican incumbent.
How does your identity as a queer woman contribute to making you the person for the job?
We’ve never elected a woman in this district to this seat. We’ve never elected a Democrat to this seat, and we’ve definitely never, ever sent someone who is an LGBTQ representative to Harrisburg from this district. It’s all been wealthy white men. I’m finding that people are responding to me being out in this campaign. It has had an impact on individual people. I’m hearing from people all the time that this is something that’s pulling people together.
We had our first-ever Democratic LGBTQ caucus of the Delaware County Dems. We filled a room wall-to-wall with people; people I had never met and had some of the best conversations with. This is a county that’s been controlled by Republicans since the Civil War.
How do you combat being the minority as the Democratic queer woman running for this seat?
It’s more than anything being unapologetically honest about who I am and making sure that I’m centering that in every conversation that I have. The best way to fight that is to be completely out loud about who we are and never diminish that or apologize.