7 women who could be the first US female President
When Hillary Clinton won the election on Nov. 8, 2016 - and it was certain she was going to win - she would take the stage at New York City's Javits Center, a building made entirely of glass. As she and women across the country celebrated her shattering the highest glass ceiling, confetti designed to look like shards of glass would rain down from the literal glass ceiling.
The confetti never fell, of course. Her supporters - especially women - were crushed that she lost. America would not have a woman president yet.
But women might not have to wait too much longer. Unlike past elections, where one woman competed in the primaries against a gaggle of men, this time, there’s a slew of eminently qualified women waiting to run. Here are seven women to watch leading up to the 2020 election.
Kirsten Gillibrand
When Hillary Clinton was tapped as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state in 2009, the governor of New York appointed Gillibrand to fill out her Senate term. In the years since, Gillibrand has made a name for herself as an ambitious, principled lawmaker, with - recently - a bit of a sailor’s mouth. Following in Clinton’s footsteps, she’s long elicited buzz about a potential run. She’s staked out her claim as a leader of the resistance, voting no on nearly all of the president’s Cabinet nominees. Though she told reporters in May that she was “ruling out” a 2020 run to focus on her reelection to the Senate, in 2018, that’s a par-for-the-course denial for politicians.
Kamala Harris
In the span of just a few months, the freshman senator from California has placed herself at the centre of the resistance to Trump. In a prominent speech at the Women’s March on Washington, she encouraged her “sisters” to “buckle in” for the Trump presidency. She protested Trump’s travel ban in front of the White House. And she’s had some viral moments in prominent congressional hearings, persistently questioning administration officials - even when she was rebuked. In May, when she was asked whether she wanted to run in 2020, she said she wasn’t giving it any consideration: “I’ve got to stay focused.” That's typical Washington-speak for politicians who later run for office.
Elizabeth Warren
In the Trump era, the will-she-or-won’t-she progressive superstar has catapulted to an even higher level of political fame. She's the source of the now-iconic feminist meme "nevertheless, she persisted" (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was scolding Warren when he uttered those words in February after cutting short her speech on the Senate floor, in which she was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King). Now that Clinton has been benched, the Massachusetts senator is free to run for higher office herself. Like other politicians, she publicly denies that she will run for president but she’s been ticking off the “run for president” checklist, making speeches to key constituencies (like the NAACP and EMILY’s List) and releasing a book about saving the middle class. If she runs, she would capitalise on her immense popularity and continue riding the populist wave Bernie Sanders’s insurgent campaign stoked in 2016.
Amy Klobuchar
The Minnesota senator isn’t well known on the national stage. But she’s quite popular in her home state, and known in Washington for her progressive values, practical style, and sense of humour. She’s laying the groundwork for a presidential bid by fundraising for her fellow Democrats and making pilgrimages to Iowa, which hosts the first caucuses for the presidential elections. In a May speech there, she laid out her vision for a reformed Democratic Party, which would focus on an economic agenda designed to bolster the middle class. She’s also evangelised about the need for reaching rural - read: Trump - voters. Though she has shrugged off presidential speculation, that seems like a message expressly designed for a 2020 campaign.
Tammy Duckworth
After four years representing Illinois in the House, Duckworth was elected to the Senate in November. A disabled veteran who lost both her legs in Iraq when the helicopter she was flying was gunned down, she’s new to the national stage, but so was Obama when he first got to the Senate. Along with her rapid political rise, her compelling story and background - her mother is Thai-Chinese and an ancestor on her father's side fought in the American Revolution - could make her a powerful candidate. When asked if Duckworth was planning to run in 2020, her spokesman told Cosmopolitan.com that she "is continuing to do what she’s done her entire life: protecting and defending the nation she loves and has risked her life for. She is completely focused on her job representing the people of Illinois in the U.S. Senate, which means she wakes up every day and works to advance policies that give anyone who works hard an opportunity to achieve their own American Dream.”
Sheryl Sandberg
Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and women in the workplace advocate (she wrote the seminal women-and-work guide Lean In) could be the Democrats' answer to Trump: an outsider with a knack for negotiation. She’s been more successful in business than Trump - none of her businesses have gone bankrupt - and like the president, could help fund her own campaign. In the Clinton administration, she worked for Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and it was rumoured last year that Hillary was considering tapping Sandberg for her own Cabinet. Sandberg has been a critic of Trump's, speaking out against his immigration travel ban and his reinstatement of the global gag rule. She’s said, however, that she is not interested in running. And unlike politicians, she doesn’t have to play coy so she might be telling the truth.
Oprah
Trump was a businessman with zero political experience running an underdog campaign. (We know how that turned out.) That could inspire others like him to try to replicate his success. Oprah has Trump’s credentials on steroids: She’s wealthier, more charitable, more famous, and more popular than he has ever been. She resonates with Americans of all stripes and her appeal traverses party lines. But she, like Sandberg, has said it’s not going to happen (though she did joke earlier this year that Trump’s win may inspire her). For his part, Trump quipped early in his campaign that he’d love to share a presidential ticket with Oprah. “I think we’d win easily, actually.” She might be just the kryptonite the Democratic Party needs to defeat the president.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter. From Cosmo US.
You Might Also Like
