Black candidate makes history as women
advance in U.S. midterms
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[May 23, 2018]
By Letitia Stein
(Reuters) - Democratic voters rallied on
Tuesday for the chance to make history in November by selecting a ticket
filled with female candidates, including a bid to elect the first
African-American female governor in the United States.
Stacey Abrams won the party's nomination for governor in Georgia, where
she faces long odds in a Republican-dominated southern state testing
divergent Democratic strategies.
She was among a slate of candidates selected by voters in four states to
advance to the November midterm elections. Contests in Texas and
Kentucky also moved women to the forefront of the fight for the U.S.
House of Representatives, where Democrats need to wrest 23 seats from
Republicans to gain control.
Several races were a referendum on divisions within the Democratic
party.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2018/May/23/images/ads/current/goodman_sda_Book_021914.png)
Kentucky Democrats picked a female former Marine fighter pilot, Amy
McGrath, in a snub to the party establishment for a U.S. House seat
district that Democrats hope to put into play. The Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had promoted her opponent,
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, to take on U.S. Representative Andy Barr, the
Republican incumbent, in November.
Runoff contests in Texas also showed the potency of the record numbers
of women running, especially on the Democratic ticket, in the first
national election since Republican President Donald Trump won the White
House in 2016.
In Texas, two women backed by the national Democrats won the nomination
for competitive House seats.
Iraq war veteran Gina Ortiz Jones hopes to blaze a trail as a lesbian
and Filipina-American in her bid to unseat Republican Congressman Will
Hurd.
Lawyer Lizzie Pannill Fletcher won the party's nomination to challenge
Republican U.S. Representative John Culberson in Houston's affluent
suburbs.
She beat Laura Moser, a progressive previously targeted by opposition
research by the DCCC.
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![](../images/052318pics/news_v26.jpg)
Stacey Abrams, running for the Democratic primary for Georgia's 2018
governor's race, speaks at a Young Democrats of Cobb County meeting
as she campaigns in Cobb County, Georgia, U.S. on November 16, 2017.
REUTERS/Chris Aluka Berry/File Photo
![](../images/ads/current/fitzpatrick_lda_SPONSOR_2017.png)
Also in Texas, Democrats nominated Lupe Valdez to run against
Republican Governor Greg Abbott. A Latina and former sheriff, Valdez
is seen as a long-shot in the conservative state to become the first
openly lesbian governor in the country.
In Georgia, history was already being written as Abrams became the
first black female in the United States to win a major party's
nomination for governor, according to the Gender Watch project, a
nonpartisan group tracking elections.
"Our state's rich and complicated history courses through our
memories on nights like tonight, when the unexpected becomes the
truth," Abrams told supporters, recalling Georgia's place in the
civil rights movement.
In the contest for an open seat, Abrams aims to turn a
Republican-controlled state by mobilizing black voters - a strongly
Democratic demographic group that often skips off-year elections -
to form a winning coalition with white progressives.
Abrams defeated Stacey Evans, a white candidate who argued Democrats
could not win without also persuading white moderate voters who can
swing between parties.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2018/May/23/images/ads/current/graue_sda_2016.png)
The Republican primary for Georgia's governorship was headed to a
runoff between Lieutenant Governor L.S. "Casey" Cagle and Secretary
of State Brian Kemp in a contest where gun rights has been a key
issue.
In Arkansas, Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson won his primary.
(Reporting by Letitia Stein in Detroit; Editing by Colleen Jenkins)
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