Featuring one of the most diverse slates of both Democratic and Republican candidates in recent years, this midterm election has set up a possible wave of historic leadership firsts across the country.
Voters on Tuesday could propel into office the first Native American female governor and Native women senators, the first Black female governor, the first openly gay U.S. senator and the first Muslim U.S. senator, among other milestones. Most are Democrats,
but the GOP could also break ground.
While some of these candidates have avoided focusing on the inherent historic value of their race, gender, religion or sexual orientation, some voters' rights advocates are celebrating how the electorate has expanded.
“These firsts show how our country is changing,” Alexis Anderson-Reed, president and CEO of State Voices, a network of advocates for civic engagement and equity in democracy, said via e-mail.
“For years, people of color and LGBTQ+ communities have organized, knocked on doors, talked to voters, held conversations, and done the hard work of saving our democracy," Anderson-Reed said. "These wins are because of them.”
Here are some of the races where history could be made.
Democrat Deb Haaland already broke barriers in 2018 as one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. Then she became the first Native American cabinet secretary, running President Joe Biden’s Department of the Interior. Charles Curtis, from the Kaw Nation, was President Herbert Hoover’s vice president.
Now the Laguna Pueblo citizen is poised to add first Native American woman governor to the list if she beats Republican Gregg Hull, a former mayor, in New Mexico.
Oklahoma is the only state to elect a tribal citizen for governor — Democrat Johnston Murray in the 1950s and current Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Haaland shrugged off a question about her various political identities in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
“I mean, somebody has to be the first,” she said. “I just don’t want to be the last, right?”
But she says she's proud to see how Indigenous people care about representation as other Native women run. “It truly does matter,” Haaland said. “It’s not just a slogan.”
Mary Peltola, who is Yup’ik and a Democrat, was considered a trailblazer in 2022 when she became the first Alaska Native elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Now the former congresswoman is trying to do the same in the Senate by unseating Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
The honor could also go to Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a progressive Democrat and a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe who faces Republican Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter.
And if Tafoya wins, she too would make history — as the first Republican of Latina heritage to sit in the U.S. Senate.
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Lisa Demuth could end a 250-year streak without a Black woman serving as a state's governor.
Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, is running against Republican Rick Jackson, a billionaire businessman, to be governor of Georgia. If she wins, Bottoms would also be Georgia’s first governor of color. All 83 of Georgia’s previous governors have been white men.
Demuth, the former Minnesota House speaker, is going up against longtime Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Whatever the outcome, Minnesota will get its first female governor.
Stacey Abrams is the only Black woman to come close to winning a governor's race when she got the Georgia Democratic Party's nomination in 2018 and 2022.
Abdul El-Sayed could be the first Muslim American to serve in the U.S. Senate.
The progressive Michigan Democrat needs to defeat Republican Mike Rogers in what has been a very tight and contentious race.
El-Sayed has had to contend with Republicans all the way up to Trump implying or overtly stating that the Michigan-born epidemiologist is not American and supports terrorism. Trump has called him “dangerously radical," “too extreme” and referred to him as “Mohammed." El-Sayed and his supporters have denounced the attacks as Islamophobic or racist affronts to religious freedom.
Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas could be the country’s first openly gay senator if he's elected in New Hampshire. He is running against former Republican U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu.
Pappas already became the first openly gay member of Congress when he was elected in 2018.
This potential new benchmark is not something Pappas has dwelled on while campaigning, saying “I’m not running to make history.” But he also applauded the fact that his sexual orientation was not a huge source of discussion among potential voters.
The U.S. could go from having only three elected Black governors in its 250-year history to gaining seven more overnight.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the third one in the U.S. and the only current Black governor, is projected to win re-election. Besides Georgia and Minnesota, he could also have new peers in Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, South Carolina and Michigan.
Moore, chair of the National Governors Association, has called the presence of so many Black gubernatorial contenders “a unique moment.” It's not “an applause line” but a challenge to make diverse gubernatorial nominees more common, he said.
This midterm has been a record-breaker for women vying for state and federal offices. Democrats increased their 2022 number of women candidates to 19 running for governor, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. The Republican Party has seven women setting their sights on governor.
Like Minnesota, Tennessee will elect its first female governor. The main candidates are Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Democrat Jerri Green, a Memphis city councilwoman.
The election of the first Democratic Asian American woman as governor could happen in Vermont with Amanda Janoo, who is half Malaysian, or Oklahoma with Cyndi Munson, a former state lawmaker of Korean descent. Former Republican Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who is of Indian heritage, was the first Asian American female governor.
Nearly 300 women, including incumbents, are running for the U.S. Senate and House, as documented by Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics.
Among them is Democrat Juliana Stratton in Illinois. If Stratton, who is Black, wins her Senate race, then she and fellow Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who is of Thai heritage, will make Illinois the first state to be represented by two female senators of color.
____
Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, and Savannah Peters in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.
