A bigot lost her election and her brother lost his job. I’m not shedding any tears.

A Jersey City mayoral aide lost his job after helping his sister's hate-filled campaign to be Missouri's secretary of state. Boo-hoo. (Edwin J. Torres/ Governor’s Office)

Praise gay Jesus, Valentina Gomez has fallen.

Gomez, whose quest to become Missouri’s new secretary of state centered around saying nasty things about Black and queer people, bombed at the polls Tuesday , coming in sixth in the state’s GOP primary and not cracking 8% of the vote.

Yes, Gomez’s viral campaign videos, which featured language that would make all but the most virulent homophobe cringe, seemed largely performative, and there appeared to be no chance she could actually win the primary, let alone the general election. But at a time when powerful forces are itching to make same-sex marriage illegal again and politicians nationwide are vowing to look up girls’ skirts when they’re too good at sports, we queer folks have to celebrate wins when we get them. And Gomez’s campaign bellyflop is 100% a win.

This Missouri bigot became a hot topic in New Jersey political circles because of her brother Jonathan, who was an aide to Steve Fulop, the Democratic mayor of Jersey City and a 2025 gubernatorial hopeful. Jonathan Gomez gave his sister’s campaign some dough , leading to outcry from the city’s queer community because he sat on Jersey City’s LGBTQ+ task force. That’s not generally a role you want someone to have if they’re simultaneously supporting a political candidate who proudly uses a common gay slur in campaign videos.

I spoke to a Jersey City woman named Megan Ixim, who helped lead the campaign to get Jonathan Gomez off the task force. Ixim told me she generally believes that you can’t hold someone accountable for the actions of their family members, but she noted that Gomez’s donations to his sister’s campaign came as recently as July, well after Valentina Gomez posted a campaign video urging people not to be “weak and gay.”

“That, to me, is a clear representation that Jonathan is not only supportive of his sister but agrees with her ideology,” Ixim told me.

Another Jersey City woman, Kayla Burell, told me if Jonathan Gomez were an actual ally to the queer community, he would understand the message he was sending by financially supporting his sister’s campaign.

“You can still love your family member and be interested in their lives and go to the things that are important to them without abandoning your values,” she said. “She’s advocating for the end of our existence in some of these videos.”

Jersey City is terminating Jonathan Gomez , which Fulop posted on social media Tuesday. The mayor told me Gomez worked on a lot of diversity and inclusion matters, and his involvement in his sister’s campaign makes it impossible for him to do his work.

“Beyond obviously the disagreements philosophically, ethically, morally, he doesn’t have the ability to do a job anymore because none of the people would trust him,” Fulop said.

The mayor’s decision to ax Jonathan Gomez from the city’s payroll led to complaints from critics who say he violated Gomez’s free speech rights (Valentina Gomez, before her campaign tanked Tuesday, promised a “huge lawsuit”). But labor attorney Nancy Erika Smith said free speech concerns are not at play for some political appointees. Policy-making employees hired by an elected official can be fired if their views don’t align with the official’s administration, Smith said. That’s why you see new governors enter office and fire their predecessors’ aides without wrongful termination lawsuits.

“It gets around the First Amendment because it’s balancing the will of the voters. We voted this mayor in and we wanted him to reflect our values and his policies and if you have someone in there working against those policies, you’re actually thwarting the will of the voters,” she said.

Labor attorney Andrew Dwyer, who mostly represents people who allege they are victims of workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, said his understanding is that, generally speaking, if someone is a political appointee and takes a position that is contrary to their boss, they can be fired.

“What if, for example, it turned out somebody was a member of the Klan? I think the mayor would be able to say, I’m not going to have a member of the Klan in my administration. My guess is this is probably lawful,” he said.

Jonathan Gomez wasn’t a civil servant or a whistle-blower alleging public corruption. He was a political appointee, the kind of job that means you advance the goals of the administration that hired you. No tears deserve to be shed here. Perhaps he can find a job with an administration that doesn’t mind if he stumps for a candidate who hurls vile slurs at the queer community.

As for Valentina Gomez, I’m sure we haven’t heard the last of her. But hopefully she’ll stay away from election ballots and stick to places like TikTok, where anyone not following her can easily ignore her.

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