Pink Wave: Women to Flood Congress After Historic Election Night
*By Chloe Aiello*
The Democrats may not have gotten quite the blue wave they were hoping for ー but for women in politics, Election Day was an indisputable success.
"I think the night was better than you thought it would be going in. I'm seeing something like a pink tsunami, compared to that Democratic blue wave," Bustle senior political correspondent Erin Delmore told Cheddar on Wednesday.
Female candidates won congressional seats and governorships in record numbers Tuesday night. At least 95 women won seats in the House Wednesday morning, breaking a previous record of 84 women, [NBC news reported.](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/how-did-women-candidates-do-2018-midterms-n932801) Nine women will call various governors' mansions across the U.S. home.
These wins were mostly fueled by the Democratic Party, which put a record numbers of women on the ballot.
"When you talk about Democrats clinching control of the House, you have the women candidates to thank," Delmore said.
Delmore said that many of these candidates adopted a new approach when campaigning for their various positions. Instead of downplaying their various backgrounds and ties to family ー they leaned in.
"This is something new we saw from women candidates: they are not trying to focus on their resumes and tout their accomplishments and push their families aside," she said. "People really leaned into their backgrounds, their biographies, their family lives, their struggles ー and it really resonated with voters."
And several of the female candidates broke records of their own.
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan became the first Muslim women elected to Congress. Sharice Davids defeated a Republican incumbent in Kansas to become the first openly LGBTQ woman to represent Kansas. Also a Native American, Davids will join Debra Haaland of New Mexico in becoming the first Native American women in Congress. New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became [the youngest woman ever elected to Congress](https://cheddar.com/videos/lgbt-muslim-and-women-candidates-make-history-in-the-2018-midterms) at 29-years-old.
For this wave of women leaders, the next few years are going to be about much more than stereotypical women's issues.
"Don't expect women to sit back and talk about birth control and reproductive rights as women's issues. Women's issues are the economy, their education, their gun control. They are everything that hits your pocket book, hits your kids and hits you in your everyday life," Delmore said.
David Levine, elections integrity fellow with Alliance for Securing Democracy, joins Cheddar News to discuss Politico's bombshell finding revealing the RNC's plan to contest the elections.
A survey by the BMO Real Financial Progress Index found that 25 percent of Americans are pulling back on retirement contributions to offset the cost of inflation. This comes as market volatility reduced retirement savings with the S&P 500 shedding more than 12 percent this year alone.
As abortion rights take center stage in courts around the country, so do discussions about reproductive health. Signs and social media posts say things like "protect women's rights" and "her body, her choice," leaving others who need and receive abortions completely out of the picture. The potential end to Roe v. Wade would impact far more people and facilities than you may think. Cheddar News' Baker Machado breaks it all down.
Arkansas is planning to reshape itself by putting a strong emphasis on technology through computer science in the classroom. Governor Asa Hutchinson joined Cheddar News Buffa to discuss the state's efforts to promote itself as a future tech hub. “It gives young people such a huge opportunity for success," he noted. The term-limited governor also touched on the issue of gun ownership, offering up the idea of possibly raising the age limit to obtain rifles like the AR-15 to 21 instead of 18 as it currently stands.
The dating app Bumble has sponsored bills and pushed lawmakers to criminalize the online practice of sending unsolicited nudes or “cyberflashing." Payton Iheme, Bumble's head of public policy for the Americas, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the app was going after the harassing behavior beyond its own platform. "Now, while we went to work internally in the company, and we created something called private detector to automatically blur those images so the user can decide if they want to see them, there's nothing for the rest of the internet," she said. "And so that's why we went to work with these laws."
Constituent service platform Indigov recently raised $25 million in a Series B funding round. Indigov bills itself as a constituent relationship management tool that helps elected officials improve the way they organize, respond to, and engage those they serve. The startup's services are being used by federal, state, and local governments across the country, including the U.S. House of Representatives. Alex Kouts, founder & CEO of Indigov, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
