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Night of Firsts: Diverse Candidates Make History in Midterm Elections

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A Night of Firsts in the Midterm Elections

The first Native American and Muslim women elected to Congress. The first female governors in Maine and South Dakota. Here are some of the new leaders who will soon be taking office.

Long lines, high voter turnout and some notable firsts: The 2018 midterm elections had one of the most diverse set of candidates ever to run for office — most of them coming from the Democratic Party. Sharice Davids of Kansas and Deb Haaland of New Mexico will be the first Native American women in the House of Representatives. Haaland is a community activist who campaigned on a progressive message. “ ... I’ve always fought for women like us.” She’s a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe. Davids is a lawyer and a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation. She’ll also be the first lesbian congresswoman from Kansas. In Colorado, voters elected the country’s first openly gay governor, Jared Polis. Polis started his political career in 2008 when he was elected to the House. He’s vowed to fight for universal health care and stricter gun laws. And the youngest woman ever elected to Congress: Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Before beating her Republican rival on Tuesday, the 29-year-old pulled off a surprise Democratic primary victory when she defeated Joe Crowley. “She’s looking at herself on television right now.” And Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota will join the House to become the first Muslim women in Congress. Tlaib, a Detroit native, is a former state legislator. And Omar is a Somali American who came to the U.S. as a refugee when she was a child. And on the Republican side, a night of notable wins for women candidates: Marsha Blackburn will be Tennessee’s first female senator, and Christie Noem will be South Dakota’s first female governor.

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The first Native American and Muslim women elected to Congress. The first female governors in Maine and South Dakota. Here are some of the new leaders who will soon be taking office.CreditCredit...Mark Vancleave/Star Tribune, via Associated Press

There were historic firsts across the country on Tuesday night, as voters chose from a set of candidates that was among the most diverse ever to run in the United States. Native American, Muslim and African-American women, and L.G.B.T. candidates, were among those who broke barriers.

Here are some of the winners who made history. (See election results for the House of Representatives, the Senate and governors’ races.)

In next year’s session of Congress, there will be at least 100 women in the House for the first time in history.

Sharice Davids, a former White House fellow from Kansas, and Debra Haaland, a community activist from New Mexico.

Ms. Davids is also the first lesbian Native American to be elected to the House and part of “a rainbow wave” of L.G.B.T. candidates in this year’s election. She has criticized the Republican tax bill and called for “a true tax cut for the middle class.”

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Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat, was one of two Native American women elected to the House.Credit...Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

[More openly L.G.B.T. people were elected Tuesday night than in any previous election.]

In her contest, Ms. Haaland drew parallels between the separation of Native American children and the federal government’s recent border actions with the families of migrants.

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Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, was one of two Muslim women elected to the House.Credit...Kerem Yucel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ilhan Omar, a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, and Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic former state legislator in Michigan, became the first Muslim women elected to Congress after winning their House races.

Ms. Omar will also be the first Somali-American to serve in Congress. She has called for gun control, single-payer health care and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Ms. Tlaib, a Palestinian-American attorney, has championed Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage and abolishing the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Ayanna Pressley will become the first African-American woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress. She beat a 10-term incumbent in the Democratic primary and vowed to pursue “activist leadership” to advance a progressive agenda.

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Ayanna Pressley will become the first African-American woman to represent Massachusetts in Congress.Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Jahana Hayes, a school district administrator in Waterbury, Conn., will become the first African-American woman to represent Connecticut in Congress. Ms. Hayes, a Democrat, was a celebrated former history teacher who was chosen as the National Teacher of the Year in 2016. She will fill the seat previously held by Elizabeth Esty, a Democrat who said she had failed to protect women in her office from sexual harassment and did not seek re-election.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, became the youngest woman elected to Congress. Like Ms. Pressley, she defeated a white male incumbent who had served 10 terms in a Democratic primary. She will represent New York’s 14th District, which includes parts of Queens and the Bronx. She has never held elected office but attracted support with an uncompromising left-wing platform. She won about 78 percent of the vote against her little-known Republican opponent.

Two Democratic women in Texas, Veronica Escobar of El Paso and Sylvia Garcia of Houston, will be the state’s first Latinas to serve in the House of Representatives. Their victories, both in seats previously held by Democrats, reflect the shifting demographics in Texas, particularly in urban areas. Ms. Escobar, a top elected official in El Paso County, will replace Representative Beto O’Rourke, whose spirited challenge for Senate against Ted Cruz fell short on Tuesday night. Ms. Garcia was a member of the Texas Senate.

Marsha Blackburn, a Republican congresswoman closely allied with President Trump, will be Tennessee’s first female senator. She is fiercely anti-abortion, and stressed border security and taxes. Mr. Trump visited Tennessee to campaign for Ms. Blackburn three times, most recently at a rally in Chattanooga on Sunday.

Kyrsten Sinema, a three-term Democratic congresswoman, will be the first female senator of Arizona — and the first openly bisexual senator in the country. She started off as a Green Party activist in the early 2000s, but moved to the political center after she was elected to the state legislature.

Jared Polis, a wealthy Democratic congressman in Colorado, became the first openly gay man elected as governor in any state. He wants to push for single-payer health care and renewable energy.

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Kristi Noem, a Republican, was elected the first female governor of South Dakota.Credit...Tim Gruber for The New York Times

Kristi Noem, a four-term Republican congresswoman who touted her experience working on her family’s farm and her conservative record in office, will be the first female governor of South Dakota. Vice President Mike Pence campaigned for her at a rally in Rapid City on Monday night.

Janet Mills, the Democratic state attorney general of Maine, will be its first female governor. (She was also the first woman elected as the state’s attorney general.) The former prosecutor was elected to the state legislature in 2002, and has vowed to combat the opioid epidemic and ensure access to health care.

Lourdes Leon Guerrero, a successful bank executive in Guam and a Democrat, became the first female governor of the small United States territory in the Pacific. She was part of a wave of female candidates who won there on Tuesday, including 10 women elected to the 15-member Guam Legislature.

Matthew Haag and Mihir Zaveri contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section F, Page 19 of the New York edition with the headline: Congress to Governor’s Mansions, a Night of Historic Wins. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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