A record number of women are running for U.S. House of Representatives seats, along with women running at every level of public office. And they’re winning.
Rachel Crooks, one winner in Ohio who also accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault, told Elle magazine: “I want to be part of the positive change needed in government, especially in light of several recent scandals and examples of poor leadership at the Ohio Statehouse.”
“It’s time voters demanded integrity and accountability from their elected officials, and I want to show the people of District 88 that I have the character and background to deliver on those promises,” she said.
While Trump denied the allegation, Crooks promised to continue to call out liars like him:
Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11, 2006. Let’s clear this up for everyone. It’s liars like you in politics that have prompted me to run for office myself. https://t.co/ir7EEKoXRU https://t.co/GmkkZ5jUc7
Rachel Crooks for Ohio (@RachelforOhio) February 20, 2018
Women won 63 percent of the congressional districts races on Tuesday North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Ohio. Eight Black women won primaries that day. The DNC chair Tom Perez has said Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party.
Emily’s List, a nonprofit that supports female democratic candidates, says voters want people at the table that aren’t all white men.
DD Adams, a Black woman who is an advocate for LGBTQ rights, won in North Carolina. In a speech she delivered at the District Convention, she recalled the division in her district that Virginia Foxx, the current U.S. Representative for the district, and Trump try to hide from the public. She told a story of how young teens tore a Black Lives Matter banner from a church in her district and spray painted “White” over it. She said the administration has people believing that, “Maybe the fabric of this country is so torn that we can’t stitch it back together.” She went on to say, “We may be cut from different cloth but we’re all part of the same thread that connects us. We have an opportunity to heal those rifts and tell a new story. We know that unity is greater than division.”
Few women of color have served in the delegation in the last 30 years, according to GenderWatch 2018. In North Carolina, Alma Adams and former Rep. Eva Clayton served. In Ohio, two incumbents along with Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones served. In Indiana, the last Black woman to serve left in 2007.
But this year, things may be different. The Black female winners so far:
– In North Carolina: Democrats Alma Adams (incumbent), DD Adams and Linda Coleman.
– In Ohio: Democrats Joyce Beatty (incumbent), Marcia Fudge (incumbent) and Vanessa Enoch
– In Indiana: Democrats Dee Thorton and Jeannine Lee Lake
Whether or not they are emboldened by Hillary Clinton’s popular vote win in 2016, or by the innumerable scandals in the current administration that including everything from Stormy Daniels to “grab ’em by the pu**y,” to public servants beating their wives, or #MeToo, or the many racist, homophobic, sexist values that Trump embodies, candidates and voters are tired of the way public servants are failing.
