A victory for the representation of minorities in the US
The 116th Congress of the US will have record numbers of women, Muslim, Latin American, LGBT and Native American representation after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
The diversity of the high-profile midterm cycle means several winners will take office as trailblazers, with the incoming class of legislators expected to have a marked effect on politics in the capital, particularly in the Democratic Party.
“Here in Minnesota, we don’t only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington,” said Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Somali-American who came to the US as a refugee and won 78 per cent of the vote in Minnesota’s fifth congressional district.
Ms Omar will be one of the two first Muslim women to serve in Congress, alongside Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who won uncontested.
They will be joined by veteran politician Donna Shalala, of Lebanese descent, who won her seat in Florida.
The three newly elected congresswomen will join five congressmen of Arab descent now in the House of Representatives. And Keith Ellison, who was succeeded by Ms Omar, became the first Muslim attorney general of Minnesota.
But the Arab-American and Muslim communities are not the only ones to break the glass ceiling on Tuesday night.
Ayanna Pressley and Jahana Hayes became the first black women to represent their states, Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Marsha Blackburn became the first woman to make it to the Senate from Tennessee and Jacky Rosen became the first female to represent Nevada in the Senate.
Cindy Axne and Abby Finkenauer will be Iowa’s first women in the House, while Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids will be America’s first Native American women to make it to Congress. Ms Davids will also be the first openly gay Native American to do so.
Similarly, in historically ruby red Texas, Democratic candidates Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia are now the first Latin American women in Congress.
Women’s representation in the House will hit 100 in January, while there will be 12 women in the Senate.
The LGBT community also had a historic night on Tuesday. Jared Polis became the first openly gay governor in the state of Colorado.
Kristi Noem and Janet Mills became the first women governors in South Dakota and Maine.
Shibley Telhami, director of Critical Issues Poll at the University of Maryland, said the election of three Arab-American women “has to be inspiring as they are three women of under-represented minorities”.
But Mr Telhami said their rise spoke of a different type of phenomenon.
“Donna Shalala has been a prominent, successful Democrat who has been proud of her Arab Lebanese heritage, but that has not been a defining characteristic of her career,” he told The National.
In contrast, Ms Tlaib “has been inspiring to Arab-Americans because she has been upfront about her Palestinian heritage and her progressive views, and Ms Omar has proudly displayed her identity, especially her religion, including through her dress and is a naturalised American”.
Asked if President Donald Trump’s hostile positions on immigrants and Muslims had triggered the rise of these women, Mr Telhami said that “each district has its own local politics and these cases are no exception. They may have been elected without the Trump factor”.
But he said that Mr Trump “energised women to run and vote and that showed in the participation and the outcome”.
Rashida Tlaib has been inspiring to Arab-Americans because she has been upfront about her Palestinian heritage SHIBLEY TELHAMI University of Maryland