Women step up, as candidates and voters,
Hundreds of women in both parties ran for office, animated by issues, fears
A record number of women appeared headed to Congress as polls 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 Democratic-leaning 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 per cent, 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 Win- frey, 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 governors races are particularly important because of the upcoming redistricting battles.
The women who ran this year were remarkably diverse — Black, Latina, Native American. But noticeably absent on ballots were more Republican women.
In fact, though only10 per cent of the current Republican members of the House are women, that number was expected to dip lower.
“We need to go out and get our women engaged,” said Sarah Chamberlain, president and CEO of Republican Main Street Partnership. “We are being dwarfed by the Democrats. This is something we are going to focus on.”
Chamberlain said she hears voters in key districts talking mostly about an affordable health-care system that serves everyone, even those with preexisting medical conditions. That has been the loud and clear message of many Democratic candidates. Among the new faces coming to Congress:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, 29, a Latina who defeated incumbent Joseph Crowley in a decisive primary, is set to become the youngest House member ever elected.
In Virginia, Democrat Jennifer Wexton unseated Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock.
In Florida, Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, an immigrant from Ecuador and educator, focused her campaign largely on health care and toppled Rep. Carlos Curbelo, the Republican incumbent. Curbelo had voted to repeal Obamacare in a district that contains thousands of people who benefited from it. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the Democratic nominee in the strongly Democratic 5th Congressional District, is a Somali American and former refugee. At a rally Monday night in Minneapolis, the crowd cheered wildly, and she danced as she was introduced.
“The opportunity to be here, to participate in this democracy, has made me want to dance, and door-knock and talk to people and invite people to the joy of what it means to participate in a democracy,” she told a crowd of volunteers.
“What I want to do for you is have my energy be contagious,” she said.