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BLACK WOMEN NOTCH HISTORIC SENATE WINS IN AN ELECTION YEAR DEFINED BY
POTENTIAL FIRSTS  
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Aaron Morrison
November 6, 2024
Associated Press
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_ Voters for the first time elected two Black women to serve
simultaneously in the Senate and sent an openly transgender lawmaker
to Congress on Tuesday. Their victories raise the number of Black
members of the Senate to five. _

Democratic Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks cheers durina
an election night watch party in College Park, MD., AP Photo/Jess
Rapfogel

 

They’re among historic choices in nearly a dozen races showing
Americans opting for more diverse representation, even as Vice
President Kamala Harris lost her own historic bid for the White House.

Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester
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Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks
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in their races, doubling the number of Black women ever elected to the
Senate – from two to four. And Delaware voters elected Sarah
McBride
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an at-large House race, making her the first openly transgender person
elevated to Congress.

The victories come in an election year defined in part by historic
firsts, even with issues such as affirmative action
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driving deeper divisions.

“Marking these milestones does two things: One, it celebrates the
increasing diversity that we are seeing in women’s political
representation, whether it be in a state or nationally,” said Kelly
Dittmar, director of research at Rutgers University’s Center for
American Women and Politics.

“But at the same time, it reminds us that we have more work to
do,” said Dittmar, noting that U.S. women overall aren’t
represented equitably in elected offices and that Black, Hispanic and
Asian Americans, as well as Native Americans, lag behind their share
of the population.

Other historic firsts in the Senate on Tuesday include New Jersey’s
Andy Kim, who became the first Asian American elected to represent
the Garden State
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the Senate and also the first Korean-American elected in the Senate.
Republican Bernie Moreno of Ohio became the first Latino to represent
the state.

BLACK WOMEN MAKE HISTORY IN THE U.S. SENATE

Never in the Senate have two Black women served at the same time.
Harris was only the second Black woman and first South Asian woman to
serve in the Senate, before she was elected vice president. From 2021
to 2023, the chamber was without Black female representation until
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler
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a vacancy created by the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Blunt Rochester, a Democrat who currently represents the at-large
congressional district of Delaware, becomes the first woman and first
Black person to represent Delaware in the Senate. Alsobrooks, a
Democrat and former executive of Prince George’s County, Maryland,
is also the first Black woman to represent her state in the Senate.

“It’s remarkable to think that in two years, America will
celebrate its 250th birthday,” Alsobrooks said during a victory
speech Tuesday evening. “And in all those years, there have been
more than 2,000 people who have served in the United States Senate.
Only three have looked like me.”

“And so I want to salute all those who came before me, who made it
possible for me to stand on this stage tonight, whose sacrifices and
stories I will continue to carry with me,” she added to cheers from
supporters.

 
Credit:  Associated Press
Their victories raise the number of Black members of the Senate to
five, the most to serve together in history. Still, the Senate’s 100
members have historically been, and continue to be, mostly white men.

“We increased our representation of Black women in the Senate by
100%,” said Aimee Allison, founder and president of She the People,
a national organizing hub for recruiting and electing women of color
in politics.

“I’ve been in electoral politics for 30 years and, for the vast
majority of that time, Black women have played an outsized role as
voters and organizers, but had been defeated, often by fellow
Democrats in primaries, because we were dismissed as being
unelectable,” Allison said.

“It’s a testament to the evolution of Black women as political
players in this country,” Allison added. “Some of the things that
stumped us are kind of baked into a system that have kept Black women
out of the Senate. We have figured out additional paths to be
successful.”

House to get first transgender member

McBride, a Democratic state senator in Delaware, already made history
in 2020 when she was elected the only openly transgender state senator
in the country. That followed a rise in national recognition for
McBride, who became the first transgender speaker to address a major
party convention during the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Her elevation to Congress comes as transgender issues have proven
divisive in American politics. From bans on biological males playing
in women’s and girls’ sports and bans on books with LGBTQ themes,
to debates over gender-affirming pronouns and gender-neutral
bathrooms, visibility of transgender people in politics could keep
those issues at the forefront of debates about acceptance and
tolerance.

After winning her primary in September, McBride said she was not
running for Congress to make history, but instead “to make historic
progress for Delawareans.”

Advocates welcome progress, but note the work ahead for representation

In the 50 years since the Center for American Women and Politics began
tracking gender equality and racial diversity in politics, progress
often comes when Democrats do better in the election cycle.

“We have not seen those same levels of gains in the Republican
Party,” said Kelly, the center’s research director. “It’s very
clear that it’s kind of a one-sided story. And if we want to get to
gender parity in elected office, it’s going to be hard to do that on
one side of the aisle, just numerically.”

Allison said the youngest generation of future American voters may not
always see racial and gender diversity as a crucial, if longstanding
problems of social and economic inequality go unaddressed by their
parents’ generation.

“You can’t make an argument about representation only,” she
said. “It’s hard to do that because it’s not enough. The first
step in creating this multiracial democracy is creating an American
government that serves all people.”

_[AARON MORRISON runs the Associated Press team covering race and
ethnicity in the U.S. and around the world. He previously was a
national writer on the AP’s race and ethnicity news team.]_

* 2024 Elections
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* Women
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* Black Women
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* African American Women
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* Donald Trump
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* Kamala Harris
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* MAGA
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* GOP
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* Democratic Party
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* Lisa Blunt Rochester
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* Angela Alsobrooks
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