Diverse candidates make history in midterms
There were historic firsts across the country Tuesday night, as voters chose from a set of candidates that was among the most diverse ever to run in the United States. Women, Native Americans, Muslims and LBGT candidates were among those who broke barriers.
Here are some of the winners who will make history when they take office.
Kristi Noem, a four-term Republican congresswoman who touted her experience working on her family’s farm and her conservative record in office, will be the first female governor of South Dakota.
Jared Polis, a wealthy Democratic congressman in Colorado, became the first openly gay man elected as governor in any state.
Janet Mills, the Democratic state attorney general of Maine, will be its first female governor. (She was also the first woman elected as the state’s attorney general.)
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican closely allied with President Trump, will be Tennessee’s first female senator.
In next year’s session of Congress, there will be at least 100 women in the House for the first time in history.
Two women, both Democrats, shared the title of first Native American woman elected to Congress: Sharice Davids, a former White House fellow from Kansas, and Debra Haaland, a community activist from New Mexico.
Davids is also the first lesbian Native American to be elected to the House and part of “a rainbow wave” of LGBT candidates in this year’s election.
Ilhan Omar, a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic former state legislator in Michigan, became the first Muslim women elected to Congress after winning their House races.
Omar will also be the first Somali-American to serve in Congress. She has called for gun control, single-payer health care and a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.
Tlaib, a Palestinian-American attorney, has championed Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage and abolishing the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ayanna Pressley will become the first African American woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress. She beat a 10-term incumbent in the Democratic primary and vowed to pursue “activist leadership” to advance a progressive agenda.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, became the youngest woman elected to Congress. Like Pressley, she defeated a white male incumbent who had served 10 terms in a Democratic primary. She will represent New York’s 14th District, which includes parts of Queens and the Bronx.