Fired for flipping off Donald Trump’s motorcade, Juli Briskman wins Virginia election as Democrats sweep the state
- Single mother of two lost her job after photo of her making rude gesture at US president went viral in 2017
- Blue wave in Virginia as Democrats take state House and Senate, gaining control of both governor’s office and legislature for first time in more than 20 years
A cyclist who was fired after flipping the bird – making a rude single-fingered gesture – at US President Donald Trump’s motorcade has been elected to local office in Virginia.
Juli Briskman, whose one-handed salute was captured in a photograph that went viral, beat the Republican incumbent to a seat on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in state elections that saw Trump’s Republican Party suffer a series of stinging defeats.
The single mother of two teens lost her job as a marketing analyst for a United States government and military subcontractor after the snapshot of her gesture spread across media and the internet in 2017, bringing her insults and threats.
But getting fired also opened “a lot of doors”, the 52-year-old said during her campaign, including accepting an invitation to run for local office on the Democratic ticket.
That decision paid off on Tuesday night, as Briskman celebrated her victory in a tweet that linked to a copy of the image.
“It’s feeling fantastic, it’s feeling surreal,” she told The Washington Post. “The last two years have been quite a ride. Now we’re helping to flip Loudoun blue.”