Despite receiving massive amounts of media attention and coverage for her hateful and slur-filled campaign videos, the controversial Republican candidate in Missouri, Valentina Gomez, has just lost the 2024 primary election for Secretary of State, and it wasn’t close.
Campaign and Background
Valentina Gomez is a 25-year-old real estate investor from Colombia running for the position of Missouri Secretary of State.
Drawing Attention
Known for her aggressive and inflammatory campaigning, Gomez has gained notoriety for using extreme language and actions to draw attention to her platform.
Examples of Language
In one of Gomez’s most controversial campaign videos, she told people, “In America, you can be anything you want, so don’t be weak and gay.”
Violent Implications
In that same video, Gomez was seen jogging in a bulletproof vest, which drew significant backlash for the violent implication she gave the hateful video by wearing military equipment.
Controversial Actions
Gomez’s campaign also included a video where she burned LGBTQ-themed books with a flamethrower and called WNBA star Brittney Griner an “unpatriotic lesbian.”
Burning Books
“This is what I will do to the grooming books when I become secretary of state. These books come from a Missouri public library. When I’m in office, they will burn,” Gomez declared in a video from February.
MAGA Fire
“When I’m Secretary of State, I will BURN all books that are grooming, indoctrinating, and sexualizing our children. MAGA. America First,” Gomez wrote on X.
Outrage Over Offensive Posts
Gomez’s most recent controversy comes after posting videos where she is using antigay slurs and making disparaging remarks about transgender and gay athletes in the Olympics.
Getting Gold
Gomez suggested transgender athletes should have a separate category, “Before, if a man hit a woman, it used to land them in jail. Now, it gets you a gold medal at the Olympics.”
Making a Mockery
Gomex then said, “These are the worst Olympics in history. They have made a mockery out of Christianity and women…”
Election Results
Despite her bold and controversial tactics, Gomez received only 7.4% of the vote in the primary election, coming in sixth place out of seven candidates.
Rejecting Extremism
To the happy surprise of the LGBTQ+ Missouri community, Gomez’s poor performance was a clear rejection of her extremist campaign by the voters in Missouri.
Lost By a Lot
Highlighting voter’s rejection of Gomez, the top comment on her Instagram video after the election results were announced was, “I’m not sure if you saw but you lost. By a lot.”
Opposition to LGBTQ+ Rights
Gomez’s campaign was centered on opposing LGBTQ+ rights and maintaining traditional Christian values, which included supporting policies that would ban gender-affirming care for trans youth.
Failing to Resonate
Gomez aligned herself with far-right figures and promoted a hardline conservative agenda, which thankfully did not resonate with most voters.
The Political Football
Missouri state House Minority Leader Crystal Quade criticized Gomez’s use of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric during her campaign to The Hill and said, “To all LGBTQIA Missourians, your existence should not be used as a political football.”
Failure to Win Any County
Despite having nearly a quarter of a million followers on X, Gomez’s influence on social media did not translate into votes that failed to win any county in the state.
Community and Organizational Response
In response to her videos, a spokesperson for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) criticized Meta’s repeated failure to protect LGBTQ users from extreme hate speech.
Hate-Peddling Accounts
“Over and over, Meta is failing to protect its LGBTQ+ users from extreme hate speech. Allowing multiple posts using this horrible slur is just the latest example of how hate-peddling accounts are emboldened to post more and more egregious attacks on LGBTQ people,” the spokesperson said.
Suppressing Voices
Eventually, Instagram deleted some of her content. Still, she used this to fan flames further, stating, “Just like President Trump, I am one of the most suppressed voices on Instagram.”
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Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Jacob Lund.
The images used are for illustrative purposes only and may not represent the actual people or places mentioned in the article.
