Call it a case of strange bedfellows.

Grindr, the LGBTQ+ dating app, has expanded its political presence in both Washington and California as it seeks to flex its influence muscles on a range of policy priorities. The app’s ambitions have grown since President Donald Trump’s return to office — and much of that is due to the registered Republican running the shop.

Since April 2025, Joe Hack has navigated a GOP-controlled Washington as he pushes forward Grindr’s biggest legislative priorities. Out in California, George Arison, Grindr’s self-described “conservative” CEO, has waded into primary politics, pushing moderate San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan as the next governor.

Even amid Trump’s anti-DEI and LGBTQ+ crackdown, Hack told Blue Light News he’s found room for bipartisan agreement in Washington. And the scale of Grindr’s influence will be on full display Friday, when the app hosts its inaugural White House Correspondents Dinner weekend party — for which Democrats and Republicans alike have been clamoring to get an invite.

“We’re planting a flag,” Hack said in an interview. “We’ve been doing policy work here now for a year, and the issues we care about are important not just to us, but to our community.”

The glitzy bash — held in a $9 million, 10-bedroom Georgetown mansion — is one of the buzziest fetes of the upcoming weekend, and the guest list has been closed for more than a week. “The interest level has been insane,” Hack said. Though he declined to provide a preview of expected attendees, he teased that “very high level people from both sides” had RSVP’d. “We’ll see if they come,” he said.

Before taking over Grindr’s lobbying, Hack spent more than a decade as an aide to Republicans on Capitol Hill. That included six years as chief of staff to Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who voted against codifying gay marriage about a year after Hack transitioned to the private sector.

Now, Hack is leading a lobbying blitz at Grindr. The app has poured $1.6 million into its influence operation since it registered to lobby federal lawmakers in April 2025. In the first three months of 2026, Grindr spent $432,500 on its in-house lobbying operation, as well as an additional $120,000 across two large lobbying firms working on its behalf, according to disclosures published this week. The legislation Grindr is targeting includes issues related to “surrogacy and IVF access for same-sex couples,” as well as two bills — one sponsored by Rep. John James (R-Mich.) and one by Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) — that would make it more difficult for minors to download the 18+ app.

“One area that might be surprising is we’ve had very productive conversations with some House Republicans on online safety and working to keep kids safe, but also do it in a way that’s privacy-forward,” Hack said.

But its main focus has been on HIV prevention funding. Grindr partners with the Centers for Disease Control to distribute HIV self-test kits in the U.S. through its app, Hack said, and partners with other organizations globally to use its platform to increase access to health care.

Last year, Trump demanded that Congress authorize more than $400 million in spending cuts to PEPFAR, the global HIV-AIDS program started under former President George W. Bush. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) vocally criticized the cuts, and the White House ultimately relented.

Lobbying disclosures show that Grindr specifically targeted that rescissions bill. A spokesperson for Collins confirmed that her team had met with Grindr, writing in a statement that “Senator Collins has a strong record of supporting the LGBTQ community.”

“Most recently, Senator Collins has been recognized as a leading advocate for PEPFAR and continuing the U.S.’s important role in the fight against HIV/AIDs,” Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said in a statement. “She appreciates this recognition of her leadership.”

Hack also personally contributed $3,500 to Collins, which he told Blue Light News came through a donation at a Sept. 25 fundraiser. He also said he expected to give $3,500 to Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), another partner in HIV prevention, in June.

“As the administration is contemplating PEPFAR 2.0 and what that looks like, we would like to step up in a more meaningful way as a public-private partner,” he said. “We’re not looking for tax money. What we’re looking for is really to leverage the power of our platform and our unique and unparalleled reach that no other company has, and to use that on behalf of our community to grow health care access.”

Grindr’s focus on health care, Hack said, is part of what he called Arison’s goal of expanding the platform beyond just a relationship app and into a “global gayborhood” at the intersection of telehealth, travel and leisure.

Since taking over as CEO in 2022, Arison has pushed to implement AI into the app and has been a supporter of Trump’s light-touch AI regulation policies. Despite dipping his toes into the California gubernatorial race, don’t expect Arison to become a new political player.

“In general, I don’t get involved in politics,” Arison told Blue Light News in an interview last week. “I don’t want Grindr involved in politics at all.”

As for this weekend’s party, the expectations are high among the D.C. chattering class.

Jon Levine, a reporter for the Washington Free Beacon who calls himself an “infamous conservative hatchet man,” told Blue Light News he would certainly be at the event.

Asked why, he responded with just two words: “Hard news.”

Christine Mui contributed to this report.

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After a narrow loss in Virginia, Republicans are pointing fingers as President Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering fight slips into a stalemate.

Multiple Republicans say the party should’ve spent much more, much earlier to have a better shot at blocking Democrats’ Virginia map, which could give the party as many as four more House seats. And pressure is now growing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to make up for Democrats’ gains with a GOP-led redistricting effort in his state, as soon as next week.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a single Republican tonight who doesn’t think the GOP should’ve done more in Virginia. It actually hurts more that it was so close,” said a GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, like others in this article.

There are mounting signs that Trump and the GOP have used valuable time and political capital on an arduous tit-for-tat that is so far looking like it will be close to a draw. Even if Republicans squeeze out gains in a new Florida map, their total gains are likely to be modest at best.

“I just don’t think that Republicans looked at the map and said, ‘Okay, what’s the worst case scenario, what could happen if all the Democrat-controlled legislators rebel against this?’” said one Virginia Republican. “We’re seeing a thing that felt really good at the moment erase gains that we fought for elsewhere.”

Tuesday’s results in Virginia, combined with gains in California and a new court-drawn seat in Utah, have effectively erased the advantage Republicans built off new maps in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. It’s a stark reversal nearly nine months after Trump first urged Republicans in the Lone Star State to redraw maps, upending the midterm battlefield.

“Just so you get the truth and not the partisan spin here, Republicans came up with the idea of the mid-decade redistricting fight and started in Texas,” Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters central to the MAGA base, wrote on X after the amendment passed in Virginia.

“Now, as drawn, the Democrats have an advantage from the redistricting fight,” he said.

The RNC and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Richard Hudson is holding out hope that the state’s Supreme Court, which reserved the right to weigh in on the new map after the election, voids Democrats’ effort.

“This close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander,” Hudson said in a statement. “That’s exactly why the courts, who have already ruled twice to block this egregious power grab, should uphold Virginia law.”

Still, several Virginia Republicans said their party could have done more to prevent Democrats from edging out a victory Tuesday. Democrats outspent Republicans by a roughly three-to-one margin, putting Republicans at a disadvantage on the airwaves until the late stages of the race. Virginians for Fair Elections — which led the “yes” effort — raised $64 million, according to Virginia Department of Elections data, boosted by nearly $38 million in support from House Majority Forward, a political nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership.

Even though Republicans have far more money stacked up in outside groups — including $297 million brought in by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. since the start of last year alone — they ultimately never matched Democrats’ investment.

“If they had spent some money, they could have won tonight and someone’s got to own that and explain why that decision was made,” said a second Virginia-based GOP strategist.

Some Republicans turned their ire to the Indiana Legislature, where GOP lawmakers rejected the White House’s push to draw a new map that would give them two additional red-leaning seats. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign co-manager and a longtime Virginia-based GOP strategist, shared a social media post on Tuesday calling out Republicans in Indiana for not being more aggressive.

It’s now too late for the state to redraw its lines, and Trump allies have spent time and millions of dollars to defeat the GOP legislators who opposed the effort.

With most states off the table, Republicans are now looking to DeSantis as one of their last and best chances to win back the upper hand ahead of November. The Florida governor delayed a special session to take up redistricting in the state until after Virginia’s election, and he has yet to release a new map proposal.

Former Trump White House spokesperson Harrison Fields urged Republicans in Florida to respond to the Virginia outcome with an aggressive gerrymander.

“To my friends in Tallahassee: in a state that is ruby red, it’s time to respond to what we saw tonight in Virginia with a redistricting plan that reflects Florida’s true partisan lean — and adds 3–4 GOP seats to our supermajority,” Fields said in a social media post. “Virginia is a purple state being drawn as deep blue. Florida should draw a map that’s even redder — and get it passed ASAP.”

Not everyone is on board with escalating the redistricting arms race. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican-turned-independent who was targeted by California Democrats’ gerrymander, said the result was further proof that the redistricting war never should have been started.

“It’s very unfortunate that it’s happened in Texas. I think it’s very unfortunate that it happened in California and Virginia and everywhere else where it’s happened,” Kiley told Blue Light News after the Virginia race was called Tuesday evening. “Now that this whole thing has just gotten completely out of hand, there have been no winners, and it’s created such instability, maybe this is the time that we can come together and say, ‘Alright, enough is enough.’”

Yet for all the recriminations over Republicans losing ground in the president’s redistricting campaign, one person escaped largely unscathed: Trump himself.

The president mostly stayed on the sidelines until he hosted a tele-rally alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to urge people to vote “no” in the race’s final hours.

Some Republicans in the state were glad he stayed away, given his flagging national standing, particularly in a light blue state. Thirty-three percent of adults approve of Trump’s job performance, according to an AP-NORC poll released Tuesday.

“If I was the Democrats, I’d want Trump on the stump every day,” Virginia-based Republican strategist Brian Kirwin said.

Blake Jones contributed to this report. 

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved Democrats’ effort to gerrymander the state, giving the party an edge in its bid to reclaim the House in November.

The new map would give Democrats the chance to flip four seats currently held by Republicans. Its adoption could put Democrats slightly ahead in the national mid-decade gerrymandering wars — a result few thought possible when President Donald Trump picked the fight by pushing Texas Republicans to redraw their map last summer.

The result is a major win for Democrats’ hopes of retaking Congress, and showed their ability to mobilize voters distrustful of partisan redistricting and push back against Trump in the Democratic-leaning state. It’s also a victory for Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger in her first national test as governor, after she faced pressure to take a more active role in the campaign’s final stretch.

Virginia’s contest saw an explosion of outside spending and the involvement of national heavyweights like former President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, as both sides raced to convince people to vote during an off-cycle April election. Even Trump, who largely stayed on the sidelines of the battle, joined an eleventh-hour tele-rally on Monday to urge voters to reject the redistricting ballot measure.

“This is really a country election. The whole country is watching,” the president said.

Democrats entered the final stretch of voting cautiously optimistic despite tight polling numbers, buoyed by their five-seat gain in California last November and an unexpected new seat in Utah drawn by the courts. Those seats, and the new Virginia map, effectively wipes out the gains Republicans made in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri.

Still, one major threat still looms over Virginia’s map: The state’s Supreme Court could nullify the redistricting effort, a move that would effectively void the election results.

And this cycle’s gerrymandering fight isn’t over yet. Florida GOP lawmakers could act as soon as next week to unveil a new map that could offset Democrats’ new advantage.