Women Continue to Make History in an Election Year That's Already Shattering Records
History. Made. Again.
Women candidates ran up the score in primaries across four states Tuesday, breaking more new ground in an election year that’s already shattering records.
Vermont became the first state to make a transgender woman a major-party nominee for governor. Minnesota might send the country’s first Somali-American lawmaker to Congress. Connecticut voters may now elect their first woman of color to the House.
That’s not all: Tuesday’s midterm votes also set new all-time highs for the number of female nominees for U.S. Senate and for governor, per the Center for American Women and Politics—just a week after women broke the record for nominations to the House.
Glamour is tracking women’s progress nationwide in a remarkable election season that will decide who controls Congress, state government, and more. Here are the highlights from the primaries in Vermont, Minnesota, Connecticut, and Wisconsin:
VERMONT
Of all 50 states, Vermont is the only one that has never elected a woman to the House or the Senate, but it just earned another distinction: Voters in the Green Mountain State made Christine Hallquist America’s first openly transgender major-party nominee for governor.
Hallquist, a former energy company CEO who supports universal health care, unions, and paid family leave, ran away with a Democratic primary contest against three other candidates, including a 14-year-old kid. She now goes up against incumbent Republican Gov. Phil Scott—a man she reportedly voted for two years ago—in the November general election.
Christine Hallquist
Scott has the advantage, forecasters say, but Hallquist, whose bio says she became the “first business leader in the country to transition while in office” in 2015, hinted the past has prepared her for the future.
“I want to remind everyone, running for governor is not the greatest challenge I have faced,” she tweeted after her big win.
https://twitter.com/christineforvt/status/1029551499611799553
Hallquist’s victory made her the 13th woman nominated for governor this cycle: Primary wins by Democrats Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Laura Kelly of Kansas raised the 1994 record from 10 to 11 last Tuesday, and Andria Tupola boosted it to 12 by scoring the GOP nod for governor of Hawaii in weekend voting.
MINNESOTA
Just hours before polls closed in the North Star State, the Democratic National Committee made its first public comment on allegations of domestic abuse against Rep. Keith Ellison, the party’s deputy chair.
“These allegations recently came to light and we are reviewing them,” the DNC told National Public Radio in regard to Ellison, who has denied accusations that emerged over the weekend about a past relationship, as reported by the Associated Press. “All allegations of domestic abuse are disturbing and should be taken seriously.”
The eleventh-hour controversy didn’t stop Ellison from winning the Democratic nomination for Minnesota attorney general.
Six Democrats tussled for a chance at the House seat being vacated by Ellison, who became the first Muslim elected to Congress in 2006. The primary winner: Ilhan Omar, whose bio notes that her 2016 election as a state representative made her “the first Somali-American, Muslim legislator in the United States.”
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Ilhan Omar
Omar, whose family spent years in a refugee camp before making it to the U.S., defeated candidates including former state House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Minnesota’s first Latina legislator, state Sen. Patricia Torres Ray.
Her win came just after Rashida Tlaib’s Democratic primary success in Michigan put her on course to become the first Palestinian-American Muslim woman in Congress. Tlaib faces no GOP challenger in November and is all but sure to succeed Rep. John Conyers, who stepped down amid sexual misconduct allegations. Omar’s district is heavily Democratic, but she still has to beat Republican opponent Jennifer Zielinski to get to D.C.
Both Omar and Tlaib were cheered on by New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her stunning Congressional primary win has made her a messenger for other progressives, although some have not been able to match her success at the polls.
In what could be another sign of the times, two women will vie to finish the term of former Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, who resigned in a sexual misconduct scandal. Democrat Tina Smith, who was lieutenant governor when she was appointed to serve in Franken’s place temporarily, will face Republican state Sen. Karin Housley in November.
Democratic incumbent Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who’s been mentioned as a potential 2020 presidential candidate, cruised to a primary win as she goes for a third term.
Minnesota is one of 22 states that has never had a woman governor, noted the Gender Watch 2018 project. That’s not about to change, since Democrats and Republicans nominated men for the job again Tuesday—but both candidates have Native American women as running mates.
https://twitter.com/GenderWatch2018/status/1029717030860140544
WISCONSIN
A viral video helped Democrat Randy Bryce grab national attention—and campaign cash—for a bid to unseat House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Pundits said Bryce, nicknamed “IronStache,” might have a little something for everybody: He was progressive enough to get endorsed by Bernie Sanders, but as a union man and veteran, he might also connect with working-class white guys who felt let down by the GOP.
Ryan announced this spring that he wouldn’t be running again. That wasn’t the only game-changer for Bryce—or for his Democratic primary opponent, teacher Cathy Myers.
Bryce pulled out a win over Myers Tuesday, but only after confronting damaging news reports about his past. Among the revelations: Nine arrests, including one years ago for DUI, as well as questions about Bryce’s record with child support payments and personal loans. He publicly copped to being “a man who has made mistakes,” but Myers still questioned why the unflattering stories hadn’t cost Bryce more support, including from the Democratic establishment: “If this had been a woman, they wouldn’t have touched her with a 10-foot pole,” she told Glamour in a pre-election phone call.
Bryce will face Republican Bryan Steil, a former Ryan aide, in November.
The Bryce-Myers tangle wasn’t all the news out of the Badger State: In yet another reported electoral first, two women will face off in a Wisconsin race for U.S. Senate. Democrats are backing incumbent Tammy Baldwin against GOP challenger Leah Vukmir, a state senator. Big political money’s already being spent in Wisconsin, a state Donald Trump won by a hair in 2016. More could be on the way.
Wisconsin Democrats also brawled in an eight-way primary for the chance to try (yet again) to knock out incumbent Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Voters picked Tony Evers, the state education superintendent, from a Democratic field that had also included attorney Kelda Roys, a former state legislator who famously breastfed her baby in a campaign ad.
CONNECTICUT
Jahana Hayes could become the Constitution State’s first African-American woman in Congress, thanks to her Tuesday Democratic primary victory.
If she defeats a Republican rival in November, Hayes will succeed Rep. Elizabeth Esty, who said she wouldn’t run again because she had failed to protect a female aide who reported being threatened and sexually harassed by Esty’s male chief of staff. Before the scandal, Esty was known as a champion of the #MeToo movement.
PHOTO: Chip Somodevilla
Jahana Hayes
Hayes, like many women running in the 2018 midterms, has gotten real with voters during her campaign: For the award-winning educator, that meant talking about growing up in a housing project as her “family struggled with addiction, relied on public assistance, and at one point lost their apartment” and also about her teen pregnancy.
“When we started this campaign a little more than 100 days ago, we had no organization and no network. People told us we had no chance and no business trying to upset the status quo,” Hayes told supporters Tuesday night, per the AP.
“We proved them wrong.”
Celeste Katz is Glamour’s senior politics reporter. Send news tips, questions, and comments to celeste_katz@condenast.com.