The 2018 midterms were a historic night for women

(Image credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 7 November 2018

Tuesday was a banner night for women, with more than 110 female candidates winning their midterm congressional or gubernatorial election races around the country, BuzzFeed News reports. In 2019, a record number of women will enter Congress, including the youngest woman and oldest woman to ever be House freshmen, as well as Congress' first Muslim women and first Native American women. The night also saw the first Democratic Latina ever elected governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham.

While most of the incoming congressional women are Democrats, Republican women made history too: Marsha Blackburn will be the first female senator from Tennessee. While there are already a historic number of women in Congress — 84 in the House and 23 in the Senate — women will make up about a quarter of Congress beginning in 2019.

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.