Becca Balint is on the cusp of making history. On Aug. 9, Balint decisively won the Democratic primary for Vermont’s at-large U.S. House seat, defeating Lt. Gov. Molly Gray by a margin of 24 points. If she wins the general election in November, Balint will become the first woman and the first openly gay person to represent Vermont in the U.S. Congress. Vermont is the only state that has never elected a woman to Congress. 

Becca Balint was born in a U.S. Army hospital in Germany where her father was stationed and grew up in upstate New York. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Smith College, a master’s in education from Harvard and a master’s in history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She came to Vermont in the 1990s to be a rock climbing instructor at the Farm and Wilderness Camp in Plymouth, where she met her future wife, attorney Elizabeth Wohl. Balint went on to become a middle school teacher and in 2014 was elected state senator from Windham County. She served as Senate majority leader and is currently the Senate president pro tempore. She, her wife and their two children live in Brattleboro.