The 2018 midterm elections are coming up, and the Democrats need to flip 24 seats in the House of Representatives to swing the majority. Given the way voting districts are drawn in many states, this will be a hard battle to win. Women, however, are used to fighting hard battles. Since Trump’s election, there has been an increase in women running for office, accompanied by an increase in women winning seats in all levels of government.
In New York State, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is the incumbent Democrat. Gillibrand was appointed to her seat in 2009 when former Sen. Hillary Clinton left to become the Secretary of State under President Obama. Gillibrand’s current focus is on ending sexual assault in the military, with a bill to give legal power to military prosecutors in cases of sexual misconduct, instead of to commanders with no legal background.
Gillibrand has also worked extensively on rebuilding the economy post-2008, and has fought for paid leave, equal pay for equal work, helping working families, keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, providing funding for 9/11 first responders, providing protection for seniors, and helping New York farmers. She has been the author of many important pieces of legislation, and is a crucial negotiator in the Senate, with an impressive record of reaching across the aisle to pass bipartisan bills. Gillibrand is an overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic primary election on June 26, and the Republicans running to secure their party’s nomination are Pat Hahn, Rafael Jones, Jim Samsel, and David Webber.
Looking away from New York and incumbents, Amy McGrath is running for Congress in Kentucky as a Democrat. McGrath is a proud Kentuckian, and has an impressive history. In her campaign announcement video, she describes when at the age of thirteen, she was told in a letter from her Senator she could not be a fighter pilot because women were “precious commodities.” In response, she wrote members of Congress until the law banning female fighter pilots was changed under the Clinton administration. In subsequent years, she graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and she was the first woman to fly an F-18 fighter jet in combat. In her illustrious military career, she flew over eighty combat missions, dropping bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq, and completed three victory tours. In addition to McGrath’s military accomplishments, she also has a degree in international relations from John Hopkins. Her primary concern is healthcare and the Trump administration’s decision to take it away from almost a quarter of a million Kentuckians by repealing Obamacare, as she said in her video.
McGrath faces extreme challenges, as an insurgent, a woman, and a first-time candidate without major financial backing from her party. However, she is clearly committed to fight on behalf of everyone, and appears willing to dig her heels in. With her strength, patriotism, and perseverance, she embodies American values and will hopefully be able to uphold those values in Congress.
Her campaign video ended with a message that rings hopeful for all of the qualified women running: “They said a Democrat couldn’t win [in Kentucky]. We’ll see about that.”