LGBTQ Agenda: Gay Dem confident he will be next US senator from Alabama

A gay Black man running for the Democratic nomination for an Alabama U.S. Senate seat next year is confident in his ability to win. However, Dakarai Larriett likely faces a tough general election race in the deep red state should he emerge victorious in next year’s primary.

Larriett, 43, lives in Birmingham, the state's second largest city. He’s seeking the Senate seat that will be vacated by Republican Tommy Tuberville, who announced in May his intention to run for governor of the Yellowhammer State. Tuberville replaced Doug Jones, the last Democrat elected statewide in Alabama. Jones himself won the Senate seat in a squeaker 2017 special election against a Republican, Roy Moore, who’d been dogged by allegations he’d sexually assaulted minors.

Asked what makes him confident, Larriett, a former Whirlpool executive, said his internal polling shows him as the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. The statewide primary is scheduled for May 19, with a runoff in June, ahead of the November 2026 general election.

“We have a history of being a conservative red state, but I think opinions are changing,” Larriett said in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “It’s a different day here in Alabama.”

Larriett stated he now manages his own pet product line, Gerrard Larriett Aromatherapy Pet Care, and his staff is taking care of business as he campaigns. 

In an email, Larriett stated that since February, he’s raised over $55,000 for his campaign, contributed another $85,000 of his own money, and hired four campaign staffers.

One of those is his campaign manager, English Layman, a straight ally who is a veteran of the Jones campaign. She told the B.A.R. it’s a “privilege to help bring his message to voters and the community nationwide.”

“I really believe he is an inspiring character that we need not just in Alabama but across the South, maybe nationwide,” Layman said. She said she met with him with “no expectations.”

“By the time I was done with the coffee we had, I knew I wanted to join,” Layman continued. “The story Dakarai has is a different story of the South,” adding that in her experience, “the South is a place where dignity and justice aren’t just partisan ideals, but are ideals we all share.”

If elected, Larriett would make history as the country’s first out Black male U.S. senator. Currently, lesbian Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) is the only LGBTQ member of the upper house of Congress. (Lesbian former senator Laphonza Butler, D-California, appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2023, was the first out Black female in the Senate. She opted not to run for election in 2024.)

Larriett has not run for elected office before. He said that he’s had initial interviews with the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which works to elect out candidates to public office. 

“However, it seems they're currently backlogged, so we're waiting on the next steps,” he stated.

The Victory Fund did not return a request for comment by press time.

Larriett said that on the Republican side in his race, the “supposed frontrunner” is Steve Marshall, the state attorney general.

“He’s done everything he can to suppress our voices – fighting judicial decisions around congressional districts, anything he can to suppress the Black vote, supporting overpolicing and criminalization, as well as our failed justice system,” Larriett said of Marshall. “This is not going to fly with Alabamans.”

Marshall’s campaign didn’t return a request for comment for this report.

In addition to Larriett, there are two other Democratic candidates running, according to Ballotpedia: business owner Kyle Sweetser and chemist Mark Wheeler. Sweetser and Wheeler didn’t return requests for comment for this report.

Larriett said during COVID he returned to Alabama after living in New York. He got involved with politics after he moved to a loft in downtown Montgomery that needed serious renovations and repairs.

“That is how I got my civics and political crash course,” he said. “I realized it was a dud, a lemon, and from there I started a letter-writing campaign and became a community activist.”

Now the treasurer of the building, Larriett said he and others were able to make necessary changes for health and safety.

“It was ultimately about building those relationships and getting people to come along and winning, winning the hearts,” Larriett said.

Federal lawsuit
Larriett is currently involved in a federal lawsuit against the Michigan Department of State Police. He filed suit last year, alleging racial and sexual orientation discrimination, seeking $10 million after having been arrested for intoxication while driving in the Great Lakes State despite passing sobriety tests, according to his civil complaint and a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Jonker.

Larriett claims the officers made fun of his name, saying they hoped he wasn’t drinking daiquiris (the cocktail), and saying the car smelled “fruity.”

Jonker dismissed Larriett’s suit, citing the officers’ qualified immunity, which shields them from civil liability in many cases in which civil rights violations are considered.

Jonker ruled that the officers’ “interactions with Mr. Larriett – all of which are captured on videotape – reveal a reasonable, albeit ultimately mistaken, belief that Mr. Larriett was driving under the influence of some combination of substances.”

“Not every sober person arrested on suspicion of intoxicated driving has a valid Fourth Amendment claim,” Jonker ruled. “The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable arrests but it ‘does not guarantee that only the guilty will be arrested.’ Reasonable suspicion and probable cause provide standards that sort out the propriety of particular stops and arrests.”

Larriett appealed and now the case is before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where it is still pending.

“I’m hoping to get that overturned and get our day in court,” he said of Jonker’s decision, adding he’s “very hopeful” the appellate court will hear the matter this year. Larriett alleges that the officers tried to pressure him into confessing he had swallowed a bag of drugs, and planted drugs on him. He provided the B.A.R. with prejudicial social media posts touching on race, sexual orientation, and gender identity that he said are from one of the officers in question.

“It really is a racket throughout the state,” he said, referring to Michigan. “Even with this evidence, nobody in the state advocated for me. They did a sham investigation.”

Larriett said he met with representatives of Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, but was told Whitmer wouldn’t intervene.

“They didn’t feel they had jurisdiction over the matter,” Larriett said, adding Whitmer appoints the head of Michigan’s state police.

The Michigan State Police, attorney general, and governor’s offices didn’t return requests for comment for this report.

“I think it’s very clear this was a racially motivated attack,” Larriett said. “I was profiled multiple times … and the incident started with the officers making fun of my African name. The white and Black officers, both equally complicit in making fun of my name.”

Larriett said if elected to the Senate, he will pursue qualified immunity reform.

“We know qualified immunity is being abused throughout this country,” he said. He also wants to fight for a motorists’ bill of rights, along with Democratic Party priorities such as education, health care, and economic opportunity. 

Recent Alabama news
Larriett had choice words for a recent Alabama Public Library Service proposal that would force libraries to pull works featuring “positive depictions” of trans people from libraries in the state. Trans journalist Erin Reed reported on the matter in her Erin in the Morning Substack newsletter. Reed noted that public comment on the matter is open until October 14.

“When you look at our education standing here in the state, we are clearly not first on a lot of things,” Larriett said. “We overregulate everything and it’s all about culture wars, so, of course, I don’t support this kind of nonsense when we are underperforming on a per pupil basis our students, and are No. 47 in the nation.”

He also commented on a federal indictment of Carl Charles from the U.S. Attorney from the Middle District of Alabama. Charles is counsel in the Southern Regional Office of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. He pleaded not guilty to charges he committed perjury as part of an investigation into whether lawyers looked for sympathetic judges when seeking to challenge Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care for youth.

“I know the allegation is this attorney perjured himself,” Larriett said. “I don’t know the specifics, but I'm not surprised. Politics gets very, very dirty here and there are a lot of malicious prosecutions. I will commit to digging a little bit further.”

Lambda Legal criticized the indictment.

“This unjustified federal indictment is an outrageous act of governmental overreach. Lambda Legal rejects the notion that the U.S. government can punish lawyers and law firms for exercising their First Amendment rights by speaking up on behalf of causes to which government officials object,” the agency stated. “… We fundamentally disagree with the characterization of the events that underpin this indictment.”

Kelley Robinson, a queer woman who is president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, stated, “The news out of Alabama is meant to scare us into silence, but we refuse. We stand with all LGBTQ+ Alabamans, trans youth, Lambda Legal, and every attorney who fights for our collective civil rights. We fight with you. And together, we will win.”

Robinson compared it to actions that happened before desegregation.

“What we are seeing in Alabama is not new – a selective, targeted weaponization of judicial power meant to intimidate those demanding equality,” Robinson stated. “We saw it during Jim Crow, and now, it’s being used to go after a civil rights lawyer fighting to protect the rights and lives of transgender Alabamans. The aim is clear: by threatening jail time for standard legal practices, the U.S. Attorney's office is trying to stop civil rights lawyers from fighting for justice all together. We refuse to let them get away with it.”

For more information about Larriett’s Senate campaign, visit dakarailarriett.com.

LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at [email protected].

Updated, 9/16/25: This article has been corrected to state that Mr. Larriett lives in Birmingham, Alabama.