Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections

Trailblazing Candidates in Gubernatorial, Congressional, and Mayoral Campaigns

Evelyn M. Simien

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032101521
• eBook ISBN: 9781000570502
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections:Trailblazing Candidates in Gubernatorial, Congressional, and Mayoral Campaigns examines barrier-breaking figures across various types of elective offices and constituent groups. The moment in which historic firsts enter the electoral arena, and the unique campaigns that ensue, are shown to be symbolically empowering. These change agents on the campaign trail become lighting rods for more liberal policies, and their candidacies are tied to questions of representation, electability, and performance. The distinctive combinations of race, ethnicity, and gender identities represented here translate into voter excitement to go to the polls and participate in other ways. Original chapters by respected scholars and practitioners consider how recent breakthrough elections are similar to yet different from past elections for gubernatorial, congressional, and mayoral offices. The shadow of Donald Trump's wildly unconventional U.S. presidency looms over this groundbreaking analysis, linking local to national level politics. For students of politics across the curriculum, this book expands the theoretical capacity of intersectionality research and links it to voter mobilization and electoral success.

1Historic Firsts in U.S. ElectionsAn Introduction

Evelyn M. Simien

DOI: 10.4324/9781003213925-1

Introduction

Do trailblazing candidates bring formerly politically inactive people into the electoral process? Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections examines barrier-breaking figures across various types of elective offices and constituent groups. At the heart of this book is a central, organizing concept—symbolic empowerment—that suggests historic firsts matter insofar as they mobilize new segments of the American electorate. The moment in which historic first candidates enter the electoral arena, and the campaigns that ensue, are described in terms of contextual effects that are symbolically empowering. The cumulative effect of their multiple identities and the historic nature of their campaigns stoke the desire to vote and participate in other ways, from attending a campaign rally and donating money to giving someone a ride to the polls, despite problems that arise in dealing with traditional opponents, from the injection of coded racial appeals or “dog whistles,” to the distortion of their legislative records and altered images in commercial ads or political cartoons (López 2015; Phoenix 2020).

The presence of a historic first candidate who mirrors a marginalized group pictorially signals greater access to electoral opportunities and motivates political behavior from the kind of voters that political analysts would describe as being on the periphery of American politics looking in, if they are following campaigns at all. These races are hard fought, and the stakes are high especially when historic first candidates unite diverse electorates and establish multiracial coalitions in opposition to conservatives who seek to suppress votes and impose ballot restrictions. Loyalty, or a sense of belonging, to the group in question facilitates the process whereby a strong affective intragroup emotion like pride results in an ego-enhancing appraisal of the event and public figure associated with a socially valued outcome—that being, in this case: the election of a historic first to public office (Lazarus 1991; Marcus, Newman, and MacKuen 2000; Parkinson, Fischer, and Manstead 2005; Finn and Glaser 2010; Sullivan 2014; Phoenix 2020; Burge 2020). They, who act as change agents on the campaign trail, emerge as lighting rods for more liberal and progressive public policies. As such, historic candidacies are inextricably tied to questions of representation, electability, and performance (Phillips 1995; Mansbridge 1999). That said, the shadow of Donald Trump’s wildly unconventional 2016 election, his first term as an American president, the 2018 congressional midterm elections, and the 2020 American presidential election loom over this groundbreaking analysis.

In the months leading up to the 2018 congressional midterm and 2020 American presidential elections, journalists wrote in anticipation of several breakthrough contests. The 2018 midterm elections were markedly different from prior ones, with the Democrats gaining a total of 41 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and assuming control of that chamber (Brown and Cassese 2020). A record number of historic first candidates had run for and won their parties’ nomination for election to the U.S. House and Senate in 2018, and polls showed that several trailblazing candidates were running competitive gubernatorial campaigns at the same time. Many of whom aspired to become state and national leaders were diversifying American politics based on multiple axes of identity: age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, indigeneity, etc. Twenty-four historic firsts were elected to serve as representatives in the U.S. House and Senate as well as state governors, twelve of whom were women of color (Epstein and Scott 2018; Hansen 2018; Levin and Wong 2018; Mak 2018). Still, others ran and won on the local level as city mayors. See Table 1.1 for a list of historic first candidates elected in 2018 to congressional and gubernatorial offices.

Table 1.1 History-Making Firsts Elected in 2018 to U.S. Congressional and Gubernatorial Offices

Candidate		Political Party		History Making Firsts		Office		State
Cindy Axne		Democratic		Female		U.S. House		IA
Marsha Blackburn		Republican		Female		U.S. Senate		TN
Angie Craig		Democratic		Openly lesbian		U.S. House		MN
Sharice Davids		Democratic		Native American, openly lesbian		U.S. House		KS
Veronica Escobar		Democratic		Latina		U.S. House		TX
Abby Finkenauer		Democratic		Female		U.S. House		IA
Sylvia Garcia		Democratic		Latina		U.S. House		TX
Michele Lujan Grisham		Democratic		Latina		Governor		NM
Lou Leon Guerrero		Democratic		Female		Governor		GU
Deb Haaland		Democratic		Native American female		U.S. House		NM
Jahana Hayes		Democratic		Black female		U.S. House		CT
Cindy Hyde-Smith		Republican		Female		U.S. Senate		MS
Janet Mills		Democratic		Female		Governor		ME
Joseph Neguse		Democratic		Black male		U.S. House		CO
Kristi Noem		Republican		Female		Governor		SD
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez		Democratic-Socialist		Youngest female		U.S. House		NY
Ilhan Omar		Democratic-Farmer-Labor		Somali American, Muslim female		U.S. House		MN
Chris Pappas		Democratic		Openly gay male		U.S. House		NH
Jared Polis		Democratic		Openly gay male		Governor		CO
Ayanna Pressley		Democratic		Black female		U.S. House		MA
Kim Reynolds		Republican		Female		Governor		IA
Kyrsten Sinema		Democratic		Openly bisexual female		U.S. Senate		AZ
Rashida Tlaib		Democratic-Socialist		Palestinian-American, Muslim female		U.S. House		MI
Lauren Underwood		Democratic		Black, female, millennial		U.S. House		IL
Note: N=24, compiled by the author based on data derived from Epstein and Scott 2018; Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) 2018; Hansen 2018; Levin and Wong 2018; and Mak 2018.

Why did 2018 produce such large gains for history-making firsts? A couple of factors combined to elect more diverse candidates to public office. These factors relate to the behavior of both the candidates and the voters. Record numbers of historic first candidates ran for the U.S. House and Senate in 2018, in part because of special circumstances that motivated them to seek election from Donald Trump’s presidency and social movements #MeToo and #BlackLives Matter to the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate Confirmation hearings (Brown and Cassese 2020; Castle et al. 2020). Arguably, the game-changing performances of historic first candidates necessitate an ongoing, research agenda on how candidate identities [plural] mobilize new segments of the American electorate, in part due to higher voter turnout rates exhibited by women, racial and ethnic minorities, as well as younger age cohorts in recent elections.

Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections builds upon previous work by extending the symbolic empowerment framework to the Trump era, and by shifting the focus from the historic firsts of presidential campaigns—Shirley Chisholm and Jesse Jackson; Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to recent history-making firsts of gubernatorial, congressional, and mayoral campaigns. In Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes U.S. Politic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements Page
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections: An Introduction
• 2 Andrew Gillum’s Quest to Become Florida’s First Black Governor
• 3 Ilhan Omar: Breaking Barriers for Muslim, Somali American, and Immigrant Women
• 4 Ayanna Pressley: Change Can’t Wait
• 5 Rashida Tlaib: A Symbol and Champion for Detroit
• 6 Mayor London Breed and the Limits of Governing while Black and Female in San Francisco
• 7 Historic Firsts in U.S. Elections: A Conclusion
• Index