It’s been a big day for… Listening to...

0:00 10:23
GOAT

It’s been a big day for… Listening to...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

America’s Just Elected Over 100 Congresswomen For The First Time: Two Are Muslim, Two Are In Their 20s, And One’s A Queer Native American MMA Fighter From Kansas

Would you like a pink flood to go with that blue wave?

It’s already looking like the US midterm election results won’t be the “blue wave” Democrats were hoping for – while they’ll take firm control of the House of Representatives, the Senate is unlikely to move out from under Republican control (in fact, it’s looking like they picked up three seats). And some Democrat rising stars, including Texas Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke, have already conceded defeat.

But amongst the disappointments, and the creeping dread of however Trump is going to spin the (for him) disastrous House result, there are already a number of incredibly positive stories and historic firsts.

Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib has won her race for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, and Somali-American Ilhan Omar will be the representative for Minnesota’s 5th.

The nation’s first openly gay man to be elected governor, Jared Polis, won in Colorado. Oregon governor Kate Brown, who became the first openly bisexual governor in the country when her predecessor resigned in 2015 and she stepped up from her role as secretary of state, also easily won her gubernatorial race to be elected outright.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who’s 29, won her Congressional race in New York, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to the House and the first ever 20-something Congresswoman. 

Close in age are Abby Finkenauer from Iowa, who turns 30 next month and just flipped her seat blue, and 32-year-old nurse Lauren Underwood, who ran against her congressman in the Illinois 14th after he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

New Mexico and Kansas – KANSAS, as everyone keeps incredulously repeating – elected the country’s first Native American Congresswomen. The Kansan, Sharice Davids, is a former MMA fighter, and the state’s first openly gay representative, and the first openly LGBTQ+ woman of colour in Congress.

And for the first time in history, more than 100 of the seats in the House will be held by women. That’s not even a quarter of the 435 seats – but it’s not nothing, either.

The average age of the current House of Reps is 57. Only 89 representatives are women, only 48 are African-American, 41 Hispanic or Latinx, just 13 are from Asian or Pacific Islander backgrounds, and two are Native American. Just seven are openly queer.

At a time when it feels like so much of the US is sliding backwards into a mud pit of Nazi apologists and wilful environmental vandalism, it’s heartening to know that on Inauguration Day next year, there will be newer, younger, more diverse voices than ever helping to keep things moving forward.