In 2007, LGBTQ+ Victory Fund endorsed more candidates than in any odd-numbered election year in its history – and by a lot. It endorsed 71 candidates, 43 of whom won, growing the number of out LGBTQ+ elected officials to more than 400 for the first time. Yet 19 states still lacked an out state legislator and six states had no out LGBTQ+ elected officials at all. States without any out elected officials included: Alaska, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia. 

Victories in the South remained tough for out LGBTQ+ candidates, yet in 2007, voters in Alabama and Tennessee elected gay men to public office for the first time. Howard Bayless won a seat on the Birmingham City Board of Education, becoming the first out gay man elected in Alabama, just one year after Patricia Todd had become the first out LGBTQ+ person ever elected in the state. In Nashville, Keith Durbin won a seat on the Metro Council, becoming the first out gay man elected in Tennessee. 

LGBTQ+ elected officials in the South were a rarity – and LGBTQ+ Republican elected officials in the South even more so. But in 2007, Brian Bates was elected to the Doraville City Council in Georgia with 58 percent of the vote, becoming the first out LGBTQ+ Republican ever elected in the South. The victory was especially triumphant since it was his second attempt at winning the seat. He lost narrowly during his first run after becoming the target of a homophobic whisper campaign. In 2007, there were just nine out LGBTQ+ officials in the entire state of Georgia.

"I am gay and there's no reason to hide it," Bates told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that year. “I made the conscious decision to be open and honest about my orientation. It really didn't come up with my conversations with voters, and for the most part, I don't think they care. It was not a campaign issue. There is not a gay agenda. It wasn't an issue."

Danny O’Donnell – the brother of comedian Rosie O’Donnell – was first elected to the New York state Assembly in 2002, the first out gay man elected to the body. As an assembly member he was relentless in pushing for marriage equality. In June 2007, for the first time he secured passage of the Marriage Equality Act, although it was stopped in the Republican-controlled state senate despite the best efforts of out LGBTQ+ state Senator Tom Duane. O’Donnell would successfully pursue passage two more times before it finally passed both chambers and was signed into law in June 2011. On January 29, 2012, O’Donnell married John Banta, his partner of 31 years.