Syndicated columnist Deb Price covered the primary win of Victory endorsee Jared Polis, poised to become the nation’s next openly gay member of Congress, as well as other out candidates in her latest column for The Detroit News.

Price emphasized that voters are now looking beyond sexual orientation when seeking candidates with new ideas.

“It shows how far we’ve come that an openly gay candidate can win in a suburban district in Colorado,” she quotes Polis as saying on election night.

Tapping into the inventiveness that made him rich in the e-commerce world, Polis founded two charter schools for immigrant and homeless youth, and spearheaded the passage of a state constitutional amendment to prevent cuts to K-12 education.

Despite such successes in his 20s, Polis felt the high-stakes problems he most wanted to solve — troubled public education, unaffordable health care and a threatened global environment — couldn’t be solved from his home in Boulder.

So, when local Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Udall decided to run for U.S. Senate, the openly gay Polis decided to run for Congress.

On Aug. 12, confirming a Denver Post headline — “Being gay not hindering Polis’ race” — Polis won the primary. All three Democrats supported gay marriage.

“While I enjoyed working on educational and environmental issues in the state, I really feel most of the issues we face are national in scope, and it’s at the national level that we’ll fail or succeed as a country,” says Polis, 33.

Price also spoke about the campaigns of Oregon secretary of state candidate Kate Brown, Dallas County sheriff candidate Lupe Valdez and Michigan House candidate Garnet Lewis.