Historic figures emerge in US midterm elections
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Dakaractu
US midterm elections brought several historic figures to prominence, including Abdul El-Sayed, presented as the first Muslim US senator, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first black woman elected governor of Georgia. The results came as Democrats regained both houses of Congress, reports Dakaractu.
The US midterm elections on 3 November brought several officials from groups previously absent or under-represented in the Senate and governorships to prominence, according to Dakaractu. Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim US senator after his election in Michigan, while Chris Pappas became the first openly gay man to enter the US Senate after his victory in New Hampshire.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Democratic mayor of Atlanta, was elected governor of Georgia, becoming the first black woman and the first woman to hold the post in that state. In New Mexico, Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo people and former Interior secretary under Joe Biden, became the first Native American woman elected governor of a US state. During her time in the federal government, she supervised an investigation into boarding schools that had forcibly housed Indigenous children.
The elections also gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, announced on 4 November in Democrats take both houses of Congress. Keisha Lance Bottoms’s election in Georgia is detailed in an article about the first black woman governor of Georgia.
