Beating a powerful incumbent is difficult, but for a female candidate during the 20th century it was impossible. It came as a shock to me to find out that the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator did so in 2000. A full 80 years after women won the right to vote, Democrats Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Maria Cantwell of Washington were elected to the senate having upset two incumbent male Republicans. Both entered their races longshots to win, but prevailed after hard-fought campaigns. Maria Cantwell endured a long recount that ended with around a 2,000 vote victory. Debbie Stabenow's victory was a relative blowout. Her 40,000 vote margin made for a 1% victory over Spencer Abraham. Both women had held seats in the US House and were experienced politicians who worked the way up from the state legislature. Their paths to the Senate were nothing if not conventional. To be successful in politics, women have had to take the path already heavily traveled by men. Groundbreaking Senators Cantwell and Stabenow are up for reelection, and I hope they each win a third term. But I also hope that we see something we have never seen before, a surprise victory by an upstart female progressive Democrat who has not taken the traditional path to higher office.
I also want to call attention to the number of Democratic women who have declared their candidacy for US Senate. Congresswoman Mazie Hirono announced her intention to run for an open Senate seat in Hawaii. She is a reliable progressive Democrat and a champion of affordable higher education. She faces a challenge from a conservative Democrat, Ed Case. Ed Case is known for his support for never-ending war in Iraq, and for voting to end the estate tax and to end family planning funding. The two candidates could not be more different and belong to the same party.
Congresswoman Shelly Berkley is running for Senate in Nevada to the seat currently held by Republican Dean Heller. Berkley is not quite the progressive champion that Hirono is, but few are. Berkley has been a tireless defender of reproductive rights and family planning in the House. She would make a great leader in the Senate at a time when a record number of bills have passed in state legislatures to take away a woman's right to choose.
Other wonderful potential candidates include Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and noted financial expert Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Women can make the gains in 2012 that were held off by the Republican victories last year.
Even if all of these women win, we are long way from adequate representation for women in Congress. I am sure that the next generation will produce outsider, progressive female candidates that grip the nation's attention. Upstart women will not need to repeat the playbook of surprise senators like Jim Webb and Russ Feingold, but they will have to fight history just the same. I only hope these women appear sooner rather than later. The Senate is lost without them.
Cross-posted from Students for a New American Politics