Diverse field of candidates makes history in midterms
The first Generation Z member of Congress. The nation’s first openly lesbian governor. The first Black governor of Maryland.
All of them, and more, made history Tuesday, emerging victorious from a field of candidates that was in many respects more diverse than in previous years – with more women nominated for governorships and state legislatures, more Black people nominated for the Senate and more LGBTQ people nominated for the House than ever before.
Here is a look at some of the “firsts” from the midterm elections.
NATIONWIDE FIRSTS
– Maura Healey, the incoming Democratic governor of Massachusetts, is the first openly lesbian governor elected in any state. Voters previously elected a gay man as governor (Jared Polis of Colorado, who was reelected Tuesday) and a bisexual woman (Kate Brown of Oregon), both of whom are Democrats.
– Before Tuesday, no state had ever elected women to serve as governor and lieutenant governor at the same time. Now, two states have done so: Arkansas, which elected two Republicans, Sarah Huckabee Sanders for governor and Leslie Rutledge for lieutenant governor; and Massachusetts, which elected two Democrats, Healey and Kim Driscoll. (Huckabee Sanders is also the first woman elected governor of Arkansas.)
– Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat who won in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, will be the first member of Congress from Generation Z, whose oldest members were born in 1997. (Another member of Gen Z, Karoline Leavitt, a Republican, lost her race in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.)
– Robert Garcia, a Democrat who won a House seat in California’s 42nd District, is the first openly gay immigrant elected to Congress. Garcia’s family immigrated to the United States from Peru when he was a child, and he was in the country illegally before obtaining citizenship as a young adult.
– Erick Russell, a Democrat who will be Connecticut’s next state treasurer, is the first openly gay Black person elected to any statewide executive office.
– James Roesener, a New Hampshire Democrat, is the first transgender man elected to a state legislature. (A few transgender women and nonbinary people have been elected before.)
STATE FIRSTS
– Becca Balint, a Democrat who won Vermont’s at-large House seat, is the first woman and the first LGBTQ person elected to Congress from Vermont – the only state that had never previously sent a woman to the Capitol.
– Katie Britt, a Republican, is the first woman elected to the Senate from Alabama. (The state has previously been represented by women who were appointed to the role.)
– Wes Moore, a Democrat, is the first Black governor of Maryland and only the third Black governor elected since Reconstruction. Aruna Miller is the first woman of color to be elected lieutenant governor there and the first Asian American woman elected to any statewide executive office in Maryland.
– Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is the first woman elected governor of New York. She has held the office since last year, when she rose from the lieutenant governorship after Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s resignation.
– Andrea Campbell, a Democrat who won the race for Massachusetts attorney general, is the first Black woman elected to statewide executive office in Massachusetts.
– Leigh Finke, a Democrat, is the first transgender person elected to the Minnesota Legislature, and Zooey Zephyr, also a Democrat, will be the first transgender state legislator in Montana.
– Delia Ramirez, the Democratic winner in Illinois’ 3rd District, is the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress from the state.
– Summer Lee, a progressive Democrat who won in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, is the first Black woman elected to Congress from her state.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
