Amid the abject terror at the prospect of a racist, sexist George Lucas villain becoming the leader of America, there is the slightly (very slightly) less stressful but no less important issue of the downticket races—aka, the assemblage of humans that are going to determine whether or not the future president can actually do her (or, fuck, his) job.
It’s also a little hopeful, because there are some women potentially breaking ground. Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, a former Attorney General, hopes to be the first Latina senator—and as the Democratic nominee following the retiring Harry Reid, she’s got a pretty good shot. Utah’s Misty K. Snow, who’s also running for Senate, will be the nation’s first trans woman in Congress should she win, and a signal that voters are truly becoming more inclusive. In California, Kamala Harris hopes to become the second black woman elected to the Senate, and elsewhere, women like Pennsylvania’s Katie McGinty and Illinois’s Tammy Duckworth are great hopes for an overall potentially more progressive Senate—and, with a hope and a prayer, perhaps one in which a bunch of meaty-faced Cro-Mag dudes aren’t just stalling every goddamn bill like colicky fuckboy baby boys.
And in the races for House seats, all of which are up for reelection, candidates like Florida’s Stephanie Murphy and Val Demings, New York’s Zephyr Teachout, Colorado’s Morgan Carroll, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, Virginia’s Luann Bennett, Washington’s Pramila Jayapal and many more promise to hold it down for women’s rights, from family leave to our right to choose.
We’ll be live-blogging the Congressional races all day and into the night, paying close attention to the high stakes and keeping you updated until we’ve got a map of how 2017 is going to pan out. Fingers crossed, full hearts, we better not lose, please join us until we are all delirious and exhausted!
