You can't deny it, people are fired up over the issues facing the United States as they showed up, like never before, to vote in the Midterm Elections.
And then…it was the next day. While several Red state Democrats have lost their seats in the Senate, the GOP House majority is no more. Democrats needed to pick up 23 seats…and at last check, they snagged 27.
On the Senate side, perhaps the biggest win was in Missouri, where Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley beat two-term Senator Claire McCaskill. Similarly, one of the most-watched races in the country – the battle in Texas between incumbent Ted Cruz and upstart Beto O’Rourke– remains Red. In Arizona, however, Republican Martha McSally and Democrat Kyrsten Sinema are locked in a dead heat to become the state’s first female senator.
Here’s an overview of the other history-making aspects of this year’s midterm results:
- A lot of people who normally skip the midterm elections can feel they made an impact this year. Exit polls indicate that 16 percent of the people voting were doing so for the first time in a midterm election. And those voters were choosing Democrats over Republicans by a rate of 62% to 35%.
- Campaigns spent more than three-billion dollars on traditional media advertising ahead of Election Day – about a billion MORE than the 2014 midterms.
- More women are headed to Congress than ever before. Results from the midterm election are still coming in, but women are on track to exceed the previous record of 107. Among them? Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who are the first Muslim women to be elected to Congress.
- On a related note, Congress will now have the first two Native American women in place. Democrats Sharice Davids (of Kansas) and Deb Haaland (of New Mexico) will be sworn in.
- Outside Washington, nine women now get to put Governor in front of their names.
- But it wasn’t just about the ladies…over in Colorado, Jared Polis is now the country’s first openly gay male Governor. Oregon's Kate Brown was the first first LGBTQ Gov.
- The people celebrating wins today include 38 women of color – and perhaps as a warning to the establishment, this is the largest number of freshmen lawmakers since 1993!! EPIC!!