More women headed to D.C.

A record number of women appeared headed to Congress as polls across the United States closed Tuesday. Overwhelmingly, they are Democrats critical of the direction President Donald Trump is taking the country.

“There will be a historic number of women walking into Congress in January,” said Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily’s List, an influential Democraticleaning group that supports women in politics. “The only question now is whether it will be a good night or a great night for women.”

Women have never held more than 20 percent, or 107, of the 535 seats in Congress, the current number.

That percentage is lower than in many other countries, from Mexico to Britain, and is seen as a reason the United States has never elected a female president.

But this year, women ran for office in unprecedented numbers, mostly as Democrats and many as first-time candidates. The stars of the new class included women who were among the first to serve in combat when the military decided those roles were no longer just for men.

Even conservative estimates pointed to at least two dozen more women joining the House.

Women were poised to make inroads in statehouses, too. Only six states have women at the helm.

Georgia had the most highprofile governor’s race. Stacey Abrams, a Democrat who won the backing of former President Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey, was aiming to be the first black female governor in the nation.

Abrams is running in a Republican state against Trump-backed candidate Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, who cast himself as a “politically incorrect” hard-line immigration candidate like the president.

In Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, a prosecutor and former state senator, won her race, flipping that state. Whitmer, in a state that Trump narrowly won, promised to fix the state’s roads and aging drinking water infrastructure, and promised to expand Medicaid to lower-income adults. Notably, Michigan Democrats selected a woman for every statewide office on Tuesday’s ballot: governor, U.S. senator, attorney general and secretary of state.

In Kansas, Democratic state Sen. Laura Kelly defeated Republican Kris Kobach, who Trump had campaigned with last month. The governor races are particularly important because of the upcoming redistricting battles.

The women who ran this year were remarkably diverse — black, Latina, American Indian. But noticeably absent on ballots were more Republican women.