LGBT candidates got off to a good start this month, with strong primary victories in a gubernatorial contest, several Congressional races, and a mayoral match up in a city with a growing LGBT population.

Dean Trantalis won office Tuesday, March 13, as mayor of Fort Lauderdale, a mid-size Florida city just 30 miles north of its more famously gay sister, South Beach. Trantalis won the special election despite some tactics by his opponents aimed at deriding his being gay.

Openly lesbian Dallas County Police Sheriff Lupe Valdez came out on top in the nine-candidate Texas Democratic primary for governor March 6. And alongside that, four out of nine openly LGBT candidates for U.S. House seats from Texas advanced their races.

In Fort Lauderdale, Trantalis won his mayoral seat with 64 percent of the vote. He will be sworn in March 20.

Among the nation’s mid-size cities, Fort Lauderdale has, in recent years, become the one with the highest proportion of same-sex households compared to households overall. But the previous two mayors of that city have been less than supportive of equal rights for LGBT citizens.

Trantalis, 64, a real estate attorney and member of the City Commission, was involved with passage of a Broward County law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. And then decided to run for mayor.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, the campaign was unusually ugly for Fort Lauderdale. Opponents of Trantalis distributed campaign flyers with images of Trantalis photo-shopped to make it appear he was wearing flamboyant clothing and make up. Trantalis’ opponent in the runoff, Comission Vice Mayor Bruce Roberts, essentially admitted responsibility for the flyers, though he claimed they did not convey any anti-gay intent.

The Sun-Sentinel said voters at the polls on Tuesday preferred Trantalis because “they were convinced Trantalis would help guard against further overdevelopment, and would ensure the city is prepared with sewer pipes and other infrastructure to accommodate it.”

Another openly gay man, Steve Glassman, won a seat on the Fort Lauderdale City Commission Tuesday, with 61 percent of the vote.

In Texas, Lupe Valdez has been a prominent figure since becoming the first lesbian Sheriff of Dallas in 2005. She was re-elected three times but resigned last year to run for governor. She won 42.9 percent of the Democratic primary vote, so must face her closest competitor (who won 27 percent) on May 22 to secure the party nomination. A second openly gay candidate in the Texas Democratic gubernatorial primary March 6, Jeffrey Payne, garnered only 4.8 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott won more votes in his primary than all the Democratic candidates combined.

Four out of nine openly LGBT candidates for U.S. House seats from Texas advanced in their primaries March 6 and will face run off contests on May 22. They include attorney Lorie Burch (3^rd Congressional district, Dallas), minister Mary Wilson (21^st district, San Antonio and Austin), Iraq War veteran Gina Ortiz Jones (23^rd district, San Antonio to El Paso), and public affairs liaison Eric Holguin (27^th district, Corpus Christi and Gulf coast).

Four other Democrats and one Republican LGBT candidate for the U.S. House from Texas lost their primaries.

In Texas State Senate primaries, three out of four openly LGBT candidates advanced, as did eight of 11 State House candidates (though five were unopposed).

The results bode well for LGBT candidates in the rest of the country, including in San Francisco, where an openly gay candidate is running for mayor. Among the nation’s largest cities, San Francisco has the highest percentage of same-sex households compared to all households.

Former State Senator and former Supervisor Mark Leno is up against seven other candidates, seeking to fill the remaining two years left in the term of Mayor Ed Lee, who died suddenly last December. The special election is slated for June 5.

Six hours drive south of San Francisco, the incumbent mayor of Long Beach is gearing up for re-election. The local paper, the Press-Telegram, called openly gay Mayor Robert Garcia’s bid for a second term a “fait accompli.” His primary is April 10.