A Core Value, Proven Again
At the League of Women Voters, we hold a simple belief at the heart of everything we do: women make a more perfect democracy. When women vote, organize, serve, and lead, our government looks more like the people it serves, and it listens more closely to them.
Last Tuesday, November 3, voters across the country put that belief into practice. In red states and blue states, in both parties, in open seats and in hard-fought challenges, women were elected in numbers we have never seen before. As a nonpartisan League, we don't celebrate any party's wins. We celebrate something bigger: more women, from more backgrounds, stepping forward to serve, and more voters choosing them.
Across the Nation: A Record-Breaking Night
The numbers from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers tell a remarkable story (counts as of Friday morning, with some races still too close to call):
- Governors: At least 17 women will serve as governor in 2027, about one-third of all governors and a new national record. The old record was 14. Fifteen women won governor's races this year, 12 Democrats and 3 Republicans, and not one woman governor lost her seat.
- U.S. House: At least 136 women will serve in the House, another all-time record, up from 127.
- Congress overall: At least 159 women will serve in the new Congress, the most in our history.
- Statewide offices: At least 104 women will hold statewide executive offices like governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and secretary of state, more than ever before.
And oh, the firsts:
- Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia will be the first Black woman to serve as governor of any state.
- Deb Haaland of New Mexico will be the first Native American woman governor in U.S. history. She and her running mate, Stephanie Garcia Richard, make up the first all-women-of-color governor's ticket ever elected.
- Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, a citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, will be the first Native American woman in the U.S. Senate.
- Four states elected their first woman governor: Georgia (Bottoms), Minnesota (Amy Klobuchar), Ohio (Amy Acton, the first woman elected governor there), and Tennessee (Republican Marsha Blackburn).
- Julia Letlow will be Louisiana's first Republican woman U.S. senator, and Annie Andrews is the first woman ever elected to the Senate from South Carolina.
- Juliana Stratton of Illinois brings the number of Black women serving together in the Senate to three, a first.
- Melat Kiros, 29, will be Colorado's first Black congresswoman and the first woman from Generation Z elected to Congress.
The night wasn't a clean sweep for women everywhere. The number of women in the U.S. Senate will actually dip next year, from 27 to at least 23. Progress is never a straight line, and that is exactly why the work of encouraging women to run never ends.
Here in Texas: History, Over and Over
Texas had a night for the history books. For the first time ever, the two highest offices in our state will both be held by women.
- Gina Hinojosa will be the first Latina governor of Texas, and the first woman to lead our state since Ann Richards. Her election-night message was simple: "Your government belongs to you."
- Vikki Goodwin becomes the first woman ever elected lieutenant governor of Texas. She will preside over the Texas Senate and help set the agenda for the legislative session. Celebrating, she said she pictured Ann Richards and Barbara Jordan "sitting up in heaven and cheering."
- Sarah Eckhardt, a former Travis County judge and state senator, was elected comptroller, the state's chief financial officer.
- Maggie Ellis, a former schoolteacher who put herself through law school as a single mother, will be the first woman to serve as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
- For the first time, seven of the nine justices on the Texas Supreme Court will be women: four newly elected justices, Ellis, Chari Kelly, Kristen Hawkins, and Gisela Triana, joining three Republican women already on the bench.
- In Congress, Katy Padilla Stout, a former teacher and mother of four, becomes the first woman and first Latina to represent the sprawling 23rd District, from San Antonio to El Paso. Leticia Gutierrez won the 9th District, and Republican Jessica Hart Steinmann won the 8th. They join returning Texas congresswomen including Sylvia Garcia, Veronica Escobar, Lizzie Fletcher, and Beth Van Duyne.
- Closer to the county courthouse, Letitia Plummer was elected Harris County Judge, the first Black woman to lead the state's largest county.
Here in our five counties, many of us remember when a woman in elected office was rare enough to make the newspaper. This week, it made history in nearly every corner of the ballot.
Why This Gives Us Hope
Look closely at the women who won, and you'll see something familiar. Many of them didn't take the traditional path to power. They were teachers, school board members, child welfare attorneys, county officials, single moms, and foster moms. They came up through their communities, the same way so many League members serve every day.
That is the real promise of Tuesday. Leadership doesn't begin on a ballot. It begins at the PTA meeting, the church council, the volunteer fire department, the county fair board, and the kitchen table. Every woman who won this week was once a woman someone noticed, encouraged, and believed in.
Our League founders fought for a voice for women in our democracy. A century later, women are not just voting. They are leading.
Now It's Our Turn: Women Making History
The women who made headlines this week stand on the shoulders of countless women who never did: the ones who kept a small town's library open, organized the food pantry, taught generations of children, ran the family farm or business, and spoke up at city council when it mattered. Those women are making history, too, right here in Colorado, DeWitt, Fayette, Gonzales, and Lavaca counties.
That's why we are excited to kick off the community nomination period for our 2027 Women Making History celebration. Each year, the League honors local women nominated by their neighbors for qualities like courage, steadfastness, vision, determination, initiative, and heritage. This year we will honor five women at our celebration during Women's History Month on Sunday, March 14, 2027.
Who comes to mind for you? A mentor, a neighbor, a volunteer who never asks for credit, a trailblazer whose story deserves to be told? Please nominate her.
Nominate a woman for Women Making History · Nominations due January 15, 2027
Tuesday showed us what's possible when women step forward. Let's make sure the women in our own communities know that we see them, too.