By now, it's hardly news that more LGBTQ people are vying for elected positions around the country than ever before. But six gay candidates from different corners of Connecticut are defying expectations by running for office as Republicans.

The six candidates—John Scott of Mystic; A.J. Kerouac of Brooklyn, CT; Ken Richards of Groton; Mary Fay of West Hartford; Robert Smedley of New Britain; and Shaun Mastroianni of Stonington—profess to be a "different breed" or Republicans, reports NBC News.

Namely, these candidates are socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.

Former Rep. John Scott became the first openly gay Republican elected to Connecticut's General Assembly, where he served from 2014-2016. Now, he's running for a state representative position again in Connecticut's 40th district.

"The majority of [Connecticut's] Democrats are a little more conservative than most Democrats in the country, and most of our Republicans are a little [more] liberal than most of the Republicans in our country," Kerouac, a 31-year-old Connecticut native who founded his high school's GSA at 15, told the news site. “So we really can find that middle ground.”

Given the widespread popularity of Democratic LGBTQ candidates around the country—like former gubernatorial hopeful Cynthia Nixon of New York and trans trailblazer Christine Hallquist of Vermont—the notion of gay politicians aligning themselves with the GOP isn't intuitive. And that's not even considering the Republican Trump administration's less-than-stellar track record concerning LGBTQ equality.

Town councilor Mary Fay of West Hartford is running for state representative in Connecticut's 18th district.

But some queer conservatives believe hope isn't lost for a gay-friendly Republican Party in 2018.

"The only thing that has kept Democrats in power in Connecticut in [current] circumstances is identity politics," Gregory T. Angelo, president of the LGBTQ-inclusive Log Cabin Republicans group, told NBC News. "What the Connecticut GOP has brilliantly done in aggressively recruiting a full slate of gay Republican candidates is cutting Democrats off at their knees."