UNPRECEDENTED: While 2018 witnessed a historic number of women entering Congress, 2020 has already broken records of its own.
By Guinivere Kimber, Staff Writer
2018 saw a record-breaking number of women elected or appointed to Congress, with 102 in the House and 15 in the Senate. These combined with the ten already in the upper chamber set a record of 127 women to serve in the 116th Congress– the most to serve at once in history. The record before the most recent midterms was 107 women in Congress.
The House elected 89 Democratic and 13 Republican women, and this upcoming cycle will see its most diverse group yet. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Abby Finkenauer are the youngest women to serve in Congress– both being 29 when they were elected. The House is also welcoming its first Native American women, Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, and its first Muslim women, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. The upper chamber also surpassed records this cycle with 25 women now serving in the Senate. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are the first females to be elected as Senators of their respective states.
Additionally, more than 20 seats in the House were filled by first-time female candidates, many of whom won by major upsets over incumbent representatives. An analysis by NBC News reported that women on both sides of the aisle were receiving higher win rates than their male counterparts. Perhaps the most impressive upset was accomplished by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in defeating incumbent Democrat, Joe Crowley, in New York’s 14th Congressional District. Ocasio-Cortez took a 15-point lead, landing her a growth of 51 points in only three weeks.
As if the 2018 Congressional elections were not momentous enough, the approaching 2020 presidential election seems to be just as groundbreaking. As of February 10, 2019, there are five female lawmakers running for president in 2020. Senators Kamala Harris (California), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York), and Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) have all announced their exploratory committees over the last few months. Marianne Williamson, spiritual teacher and activist, has also announced her bid for the presidency.
As these six women embark on the long road ahead of them, let us not forget that just two years ago, Hillary Clinton was the first– and only– woman to receive a major party nomination for president. Although Clinton was never able to participate in a televised presidential debate with another woman, this year, there could be at least six women debating.
Brookings Institution called 2018 the “Year of the Woman,” and rightfully so with the number of record-breaking precedents that were set. But with the race for the highest office in the land looming in the future, and six women already vying for the spot, 2020 might just be the final crack in the glass ceiling.