When looking past the wins, losses and politics of the 2018 Midterms on November 6th, it’s clear that the true winner of the night (besides the Democrats taking back the House for the first time in 8 years) was the American people. There were many historic and diverse elections and over 100 women elected to the House of Representatives, beating the previous record of 85 women. This means that people will be better represented than ever before in their state legislature, Congress and in their governorship.
The first openly gay governor was elected in Colorado. Democrat Jared Polis joins the ranks of Kate Brown, bisexual governor of Oregon, and Jim McGreevey, former New Jersey governor, who came out as gay before he stepped down from his office. While Christine Hallquist and Lupe Valdez, Democratic candidates respectively for governor in Vermont and Texas lost, it’s important that having a governor of the LGBTQ+ community is no longer outside the realm of possibility and is becoming normalized.
Shockingly it is 2018, and the first Native American women have been elected to Congress. Sharice Davids is a Democrat of the Ho-Chunk Nation and will be a representative of Kansas in the House, and Deb Haaland is a Democrat of the Pueblo of Laguna and will be a representative of New Mexico in the House. Also, excitingly, Davids is the first openly LGBTQ+ member of Congress from Kansas.
Excitingly, the first Muslim women have been elected to Congress with Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party member Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Omar will be the first hijabi, a hijab-wearing Muslim woman, elected to Congress, as well. She will also be the first Somali-American woman in Congress having come to the U.S. from Somalia as a refugee.
South Dakota and Maine elected their first female governors. Republican Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Democrat Janet Mills of Maine were these historic firsts.
Arizona and Tennessee elected their first female senators with Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Sinema is also the first openly bisexual senator ever.
This was also an incredibly historic election for women of color, as well. Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia of the Democratic party were the first Hispanic women in Texas elected to Congress. They will be joining the freshman class of the House of Representatives. Ayanna Pressley was first black woman elected to Congress in Massachusetts, and Jahana Hayes was the first black woman elected to Congress in Connecticut. Presley and Hayes are Democrats and are part of the freshman class of the House of Representatives.
Much media buzz has been generated around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. 29 year old Puerto Rican Ocasio-Cortez was a waitress before she ousted 10 term of incumbent Joseph Crowley, the fourth most powerful Democrat in the House of Representative. She has been cited as representative of millennials after giving an interview concerned with affording rent when she moves to Washington D.C. She is the youngest Congresswoman to be elected.
Another surprising fact is that before this year Iowa had never had a woman in the House of Representatives. They now have two with Democrat Cindy Axne and Democrat Abby Finkenauer.
Angie Crag is also the first lesbian mom in Congress representing an oft-ignored segment of America. While there is still more glass ceilings to break and historic firsts to be had, it’s incredibly important that people across the United States are finally able to look at their senators, their representatives and their governor and be able to relate to them. Now a group of Americans that have gone unrepresented for too long finally have a representative that relates to them: the dead. Yes, Nevada voters elected Republican Dennis Hof, a brothel owner known as “America’s pimp” to the House of Representatives despite having been dead for three weeks and under investigation for sexual assault.
While it’s incredibly important that the leaders of our country are diverse, open to to their constituents and are representative of their constituents, perhaps Nevada has taken it in the wrong direction.