A Night of Firsts for Progressive Women of Color

American women of color made history tonight in congressional midterm races: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Sharice Davids, and Deb Haaland (running as progressives in New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, and New Mexico, respectively) have achieved a series of firsts in their successful bids for House seats. In a night with many major gubernatorial races too close to call, their victories were early sources of excitement for the Democratic Party—for both the blue and pink waves, which have seen a record number of women and women of color run for office.

Ocasio-Cortez, at 29, will be the youngest woman ever elected to Congress; she unseated longtime incumbent Democrat Joe Crowley in New York’s 14th District, encompassing parts of Queens and the Bronx. At a victory party in Queens on Tuesday night, Ocasio-Cortez gave a rousing speech in which she repeated some of her staple platform positions: ending corporate money in politics, securing Medicare for all, ending mass incarceration, and abolishing ICE.

After winning their races in Michigan and Minnesota, Tlaib and Omar will both be the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Tlaib, though endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (like Ocasio-Cortez), ran as a Democrat; Omar as her state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s nominee. Tlaib is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants and will take the Michigan seat vacated by Rep. Keith Ellison. Omar is Somali-American, having moved to the U.S. as a refugee. Both ran progressive platforms in their primary races to become the Democratic nominees.

In Kansas, Davids will become the state’s first openly LGBT representative, as well as one of the first Native American women to take a House seat. Davids is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation; she will share the latter distinction with New Mexico’s Haaland, who is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna. Davids beat longtime incumbent Rep. Kevin Yoder in her suburban Kansas City district, where a Democrat hasn’t won in more than a decade.

All five victories were hugely important for the Democrats’ projected takeover of the House; Republicans have so far held on to the Senate. From the stage at her event, Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd gathered that “we accomplished something beautiful and great tonight, but we have to keep engaged in our activism and our organizing . . . I believe we will come out of this a better nation.”