Women Make History In 2018 Midterms: Four Women Projected Winners In Philadelphia Suburbs
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WASHINGTON (CNN/CBS) - A record number of women are projected to win seats in the House in a massive night for female candidates across the political spectrum. Some of them are right here in the Philadelphia region. Mary Gay Scanlon was the first woman elected to Congress from Pennsylvania in the last three years in the state's 5th district seat last night. She is one of the 'Fab Four' that won, which also includes Madeline Dean, Susan Wild and Chrissy Houlahan.
FULL ELECTION RESULTS
Record number of women to win seats in the House
As of early Wednesday morning, CNN projected 96 women would win House races, with 31 women newly elected to the House and 65 female incumbents. That bests the previous record of 85 representatives, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Here's a rundown of the history made Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning.
Democrat Mary Gay Scanlon won an open congressional seat in a southeastern Pennsylvania district that had been under Republican control for eight years but was redrawn by the state Supreme Court. Scanlon beat Republican Pearl Kim on Tuesday in the Delaware County-based 5th District, giving Democrats a pickup in their quest to retake the U.S. House majority.
On the Senate side, CNN projected by early Wednesday that 11 women would win Senate seats, with two newly elected women joining nine female incumbents.
CNN projected at the same time that eight women -- five incumbents and three non-incumbents -- would win gubernatorial races.
First Native American women
Democrats Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland will become the first Native American women elected to Congress, CNN projected. Davids' win in Kansas against GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder was a pickup for Democrats, who CNN projects to gain control of the House.
Haaland will replace New Mexico Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who vacated the seat to run for governor.
Davids is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, and Haaland is an enrolled member of the Pueblo of Laguna, according to their respective campaigns. Davids identifies as a lesbian, making her the first openly LGBT member of Congress from Kansas as well. She will enter Congress having previously worked as a lawyer and a former mixed martial arts fighter.
First Muslim women
CNN projected Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party will become the firstMuslim women in Congress.
Victories for both were expected following primary victories earlier this year.
Tlaib will fill the seat formerly occupied by Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, who left office last year amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Omar will take the seat vacated by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison opted to run for Minnesota attorney general this year.
Omar, in addition to being one of the first Muslim women in Congress, will also be the first Somali-American member. She came to the US more than two decades ago as a refugee.
First female senator from Tennessee
Rep. Marsha Blackburn became the first female senator to represent Tennessee when she outlasted a challenge from former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat who looked to run against his party to win in a state President Donald Trump won by 26 percentage points in 2016.
Blackburn, a conservative lawmaker closely tied to the President, looked to nationalize the Senate race as much as possible, hoping to tap into the same conservatism that elected Trump in order to blunt some goodwill Bredesen had built up during his two terms as governor. Trump visited the state three times.
Blackburn has served in the US House since 2003.
First female senator from Arizona guaranteed, if not yet known
Arizona is guaranteed to elect its first female senator. Following GOP Sen. Jeff Flake's decision last year not to seek re-election, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is facing off against GOP Rep. Martha McSally.
Sinema and McSally are locked in a tight race as of just after midnight ET Wednesday and it was unclear when a projection in the race may come.
Texas sends first Hispanic women to Congress
Texas voters elected the state's first two Hispanic women to Congress as Veronica Escobar won the seat to replace Rep. Beto O'Rourke in the congressional district near El Paso. O'Rourke gave up his seat in order to unsuccessfully run for Senate. CNN projects Escobar would defeat Rick Seeberger.
State Sen. Sylvia Garcia won a Houston-area district that was relinquished by the retiring Democratic Rep. Gene Green. CNN projects Garcia will defeat Phillip Aronoff.
South Dakota elects its first woman governor
Republican Kristi Noem will become South Dakota's first female governor after defeating Democrat Billie Sutton, CNN projects. Noem had previously been serving as South Dakota's at-large member of Congress.
Youngest woman ever elected to Congress
New York Democratic congressional nominee Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will win her general election race easily and become the youngest woman ever in Congress, CNN has projected.
Having turned 29 last month, Ocasio-Cortez will inch out the previous holder of the distinction, New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who was elected to Congress at age 30.
Ocasio-Cortez defeated New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley in the primary election earlier this year. The victory was considered a stunner and helped make Ocasio-Cortez a national political figure.
Crowley was the No. 4 Democrat in the House and seen as a potential speaker one day. His loss effectively handed the seat to Ocasio-Cortez, a Latina who has become a key left-wing voice.
Ocasio-Cortez ran unabashedly to Crowley's left in the New York City district and previously worked as an organizer on Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. She is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
The numbers in each category tilted largely to Democrats, with 76 of the projected female House winners coming from the Democratic Party and 11 from the Republican side.
A tally from the Congressional Research Service said the previous record of 85 representatives served in the 114th Congress,, including two members who resigned and one who was elected to fill a vacancy. A previous tally from Rutgers' Center for American Woman and Politics had the current record total of women in the House at 84 and the overall total including the Senate at 107.
The 96 House members projected as of Wednesday morning would clear either total for that chamber, while the Senate side had mixed results by gender. A projected win for Tennessee Republican Senator-elect Marsha Blackburn came the same night as the projected loss for North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Additionally, Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill was projected to lose her re-election bid, and Nevada Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen was projected to unseat Republican Sen. Dean Heller.
The historic totals capped off a campaign season in the wake of President Donald Trump's election that was defined in large part by female activism.
A CNN analysis at the outset of the general election noted 256 women won House and Senate primaries -- a record level that paved the way for Tuesday's victories.
As with the initial projected totals, those primary wins by females tilted largely towards Democrats. Fifty-nine of the candidates were Republican, and 197 were Democrats.
The midterm elections saw women securing historic firsts around the country, from the first Native American women to join the House of Representatives to Tennessee electing a woman to the Senate for the first time. And in several cases, the result was preordained one way or another because both major party candidates in a given race were women, as in the Arizona Senate contest.
A CNN analysis found 32 such two-women contests around the country.
(©Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company contributed to this report.)
