A Blue Wave of Pink

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I prefer to stick with my theme of hope and strong women and with what is happening with the elections, this week’s post is all about both. Hope! About a two weeks ago, I felt a release of the anxiety that’s hung over me for the past two years. My spirit always holds onto hope and needed to see it unfold. It has and the more I learn of all the lesser known wins around the nation, the more hope it gives.

Some results are still being disputed where voter suppression is rampant. My State also flipped a district with a woman physician winning her seat at the table. In 2016 we also elected a woman of ethnicity to Congress by a huge margin. But most importantly, this had the largest mid-term voter turn-out ever. This is what happens when The People show up. This is what hope is built upon. However, there is much work to do in many pockets around the nation where there is low voter turn-outs. Look at your State’s voter numbers and organize to get those statistics improved. Look to your State to get the voting laws changed so that all people have the same opportunities. Free Mail-in Ballots work for everyone! Voter suppression is the result of not showing up and that politicians use to their advantages.

The below words I found in an article from the Hollywood Reporter about the gains this election brought. Hope is the momentum tide arriving. Our eyes can be on 2020 when a majority of seats in the Senate will be on the ballots. Another blue wave of pink.

As of Wednesday, voters were on track to send at least 100 women to the House, surpassing the previous record of 84. According to data compiled by the Associated Press, 237 women ran for the House as major-party candidates this year. That number is expected to grow, as results had not been called for more than a dozen races in which women are running.
Among the new lawmakers headed to the House is Jennifer Wexton, a Virginia state senator who defeated incumbent Barbara Comstock in one of the most closely watched races across the country. And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the former Bernie Sanders organizer who won an upset primary victory over a senior House Democrat, will also head to Congress.

The Election Day gains by women were the capstone on a midterm election that has been defined by the energy of women, both on the political left and right. Women not only ran for office at an unprecedented rate, but also several knocked off white male incumbents during their party primaries. They mobilized on the grassroots level and played larger roles as donors than in previous election cycles.

There was also a historic gender gap that showed women more supportive of Democrats than Republicans. According to VoteCast, women voted considerably more in favor of their congressional Democratic candidate: About 6 in 10 voted for the Democrat, compared with 4 in 10 for the Republican. Men, by contrast, were more evenly divided in their vote.

Texas is set to send its first Hispanic women to Congress, as Democrats Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia both won their races. In Kansas, Sharice Davids, a Democrat running in a suburban Kansas City district, will become one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, and the first openly LGBT person to represent Kansas at the federal level.

Also in the Senate, Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin held off a challenge from Republican Leah Vukmir, but her fellow Democrats Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri were defeated by their Republican opponents (we can do better by getting rid of those who are no longer effective).

 A footnote: 2019-2020 is the 116th Congress of Diversity

The gains among women on Capitol Hill come as potential Democratic candidates for president are already taking steps to challenge Trump, with several prominent female Democrats among them. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the Democrats who is considering the 2020 race, said that the two years since Trump ascended to the White House had ushered a new generation of women into public life.

“Women who had never run for anything stepped up to put their names on the ballot,” she said. “They ignored the party bosses who said they should wait their turn. They ignored the consultants who said they should cover up their tattoos and smile more, and they ignored the powerful men of the Republican Party who never took them seriously anyway.”

“They refused to let anyone shut them up or stand in their way, and that is how real change begins,” she added.