For the New Year, we at Latest.com decided to put together a list of the hottest women in politics for 2017. Of course, by “hottest” we mean “most distinguished, respected, and capable public servants who have a bright political future, to possibly include the White House,” not the GQ definition of “hottest.”
After the election this year, many writers–your humble correspondent included–were preparing to write about 2017 being the start of an “age of the woman” in politics. This is because most of us expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, shattering a weird and antiquated barrier to the Oval Office that the former Secretary of State called “the highest, hardest glass ceiling.”
There is an argument to be made that Clinton’s loss had little to do with her being a woman. Some argue that it’s not that Americans won’t vote for a woman, they just won’t vote for that woman, from her secretive nature and wooden campaign style to the near-constant “scandals” that have peppered her public career.
Democrats, who argued that Clinton was some kind of Republican in a Democratic pantsuit, would often mention Senator Elizabeth Warren as an alternative to Clinton to show that gender took a backseat to “policy.” Still, everyone from politicos to average voters assumed from the moment she ran for the Senate in 2000, that Hillary Rodham Clinton had the first real shot at becoming president.
Since then she’s run twice and fallen short of victory each time, though getting closer than any woman before her. Now that this is out of the way, here’s a list of 17 women in American politics who may be able to finally break through that glass ceiling after Hillary softened it up for them. Presented in no particular order.
1. Congresswoman from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard rose to prominence this year for resigning from the Democratic National Committee to support the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. This has certainly earned her support with a key (and young) wing of the Democratic Party. She has a diverse background, as well. She’s a veteran of the war in Iraq, and the first American Samoan and first Hindu member of Congress. She’s young, 35 years old at the time of this writing, and–like John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Franklin Pierce before her–“good looking,” which like it or not helps when trying to win people over.
If you were trying to “cast” a standard-bearer for a new Democratic Party (much as they were trying to do in 2004), Gabbard is the brightest star in their sky.
2.Illinois Senator-Elect Tammy Duckworth
Another veteran with a diverse ethnic background who is “moving up” in politics is Senator-Elect Tammy Duckworth from Illinois. She is a disabled war vet who spent a few years working in the VA and then decided to seek office herself. She served three terms as the Congresswoman from the Illinois 8th. After Mark Kirk won the Senate seat vacated by President Obama in 2009, Duckworth decided to win it back for Democrats. It was a tough race in a swing-y state (at least for the Senate), but she ended up winning handily.
Her veteran survival-story and dedication to continued service has earned her praise from even staunch conservatives. In 2012, Laura Ingraham called Duckworth “my new hero.” She got to know former Senators Max Cleland and Bob Dole while at Walter Reed. In an age when bipartisan respect is all but a memory, Duckworth earns it effortlessly.
3. Senator from Iowa Joni Ernst
While she is third (again, this list is in no particular order) on this list of female veterans serving in the legislative branch, Joni Ernst is the first female veteran elected to the United States Senate in history. She also was the first woman elected to represent Iowa in the House of Representatives where she served from 2011 to 2014, before moving to the Senate.
She was reportedly considered to run with Donald Trump, whom she supported. Politically, she wants to restrict the role of government, agreeing with the party-line on many issues. If the GOP wants to mount a primary challenger to President Donald Trump in 2020, Sen. Ernst would be one who might stand a chance of winning.
4. Outgoing Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards
Unlike Duckworth and Ernst, Rep. Donna Edwards tried to make the jump from the House to the Senate but failed in her primary. Because she did not also run for reelection to Congress, she will leave public life when her term ends in January. Rep. Edwards spent her life in community activism before running for the House in 2006, a race she lost in the primary. However, in 2008, she ran again and won the primary after tying former Rep. Al Wynn to corporate interests and not the community.
Like Tulsi Gabbard, Edwards is respected by the “Bernie Sanders” wing of the party, a contingent that will only grow in size as time goes on, especially with conservative government control. While she may not yet have the political “juice” to make a successful run for the White House in 2020, she certainly has a future in the party.
5. Congresswoman Barbara Comstock of Virginia
Little known outside of political circles, Rep. Comstock is one of the few moderate Republicans still left in government. She cut her political teeth in the Virginia House of Delegates from 2009-2014, ultimately winning a seat in Congress in the 2014 midterms. She doesn’t hold extreme conservative positions, for example supporting over-the-counter sales of birth control or exceptions for women’s health where abortion is concerned.
She also spoke out publicly against Trump, calling for him to drop out of the race after the infamous Access Hollywood tape dropped. That put her near-certain win on election day in jeopardy, but she still took the race. These first years of the Trump administration, especially if she remains critical of him, could be a game-changer for her political profile.
6. Outgoing Governor and Senator-Elect from New Hampshire Maggie Hassan
Maggie Hassan is a lawyer from New Hampshire recruited by the state party to serve in the state Senate. Winning election in 2004, she entered as the new majority leader of the body for her tenure. In 2012, she was elected to the governor’s office and easily won reelection in 2014. This year, she successfully unseated Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte scoring a win for Democrats in a year when there was a dearth of them.
7. Senator from Maine Susan Collins
Senator Susan Collins’s political career began back in the 1970s, when she worked behind the scenes as staff for elected officials and government agencies. After a failed bid for governor in 1994, Collins went into academia. After Sen. William Cohen, one of her former bosses, became President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense she ran for his seat and won.
Since then, she has been a principled Republican voice in the Senate. She has never been afraid to break away from the party-line and and self-identifies as a “moderate” Republican. She has never gotten caught up in the social wedge issues, and is one of the few Republicans seeking bipartisan solutions to issues like climate change and immigration.
8. Outgoing Attorney General and Senator-Elect from California Kamala Harris
After winning the Democratic primary for the Senate race in 2016, Attorney General of California Kamala Harris was all but guaranteed to be the senator replacing retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer. First as the DA for San Francisco and then as the state AG, Harris earned notoriety in the state for her efforts to negotiate debt relief during the height of the subprime mortgage crisis. She has also worked through her office on prison and sentencing reform in the state.
Harris, who’s mother is Indian-American and father is Jamaican-American, earned a lot of “firsts” in her political career. She was the first black, first Asian-American, and first Indian-American attorney general in California. She is also the first Indian-American to serve in the Senate and only the second black woman elected to the body. Before even being sworn in, some on the left are already speculating that she could defeat President Trump in 2020.
9. Governor of Oklahoma Mary Fallin
Outside of two terms in the House of Representatives, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has spent her 20 years of public life in the state executive branch. From 1995-2007, the year she went to the House, she served as the lieutenant governor in the state. After her stint in the House, which ended in 2011, she ran for governor.
She is possibly being considered for a position in the Trump White House, but if not she will likely go for a second term as Governor. She may also go for the Senate if the current senior senator from the state, James Inhofe (who is 82), retires.
10. Senator from North Dakota Heidi Heitkamp
Heidi Heitkamp is one of those Democrats who might as well be a Republican, especially where issues like climate change, energy, and gun control are concerned. Yet, even though it makes little sense, being a “conservative” Democrat in a red state and winning. Since then she’s been a Democratic middle-woman able to negotiate with often intransigent Republicans. She was part of the bipartisan coalition that helped end the 2013 government shutdown. Donald Trump was even reportedly considering her for a role in his administration.
Despite her conservatism, Sen. Heitkamp is one of the people in office now who could stand to benefit from the populist swell in the public right now. One of the main reasons she is a Democrat, at least from a policy point-of-view, is her position on economics and income inequality.
11. Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski
Lisa Murkowski is Alaskan political royalty, such as a thing like that exists. Murkowski’s father was a former senator who appointed her to his seat when he was elected Governor in 2002. Two years later, she ran and won a term on her own. In 2010, when the Tea Party craze first hit, she was defeated in the primary that year. Rather than cede defeat, she ran as a write-in candidate and beat both the Democrat and the Republican in the race. With political chops like that, Murkowski is a force to be reckoned with.
While being something of a culture warrior, she has taken moderate positions for someone from a mostly-rural conservative state. While she did vote in favor of an amendment to ban same-sex marriage, in 2013 she noted that her views “evolved.” She also was one of only five GOP senators to vote for a hate crimes act in 2009.
12. Senator for Minnesota Amy Klobuchar
Amy Klobuchar has been a public servant in Minnesota since 1998 after she was elected state’s attorney in Hennepin County. After two terms as a prosecutor, she launched her bid for the Senate in 2006, winning in the Democratic wave that year. Since then she has been a relatively quiet but persistent presence in the body. Her positions against free trade agreements and her general populism found her on the (media) short-list for possible Clinton running-mate picks who’d appeal to the Sanders wing of the party.
Still, Sen. Klobuchar stayed above the fray in the Clinton-versus-Sanders fight and remains a well-liked figure in the party. She also has strong national security credentials, often breaking with the rest of her party to vote in favor of Bush-era surveillance programs.
13. Senator for New York Kirsten Gillibrand
After Hillary Clinton left the Senate to become President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, newly-elected Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed by then Governor David Paterson, and she won the seat for good after a special election was held in 2010. Since joining the Senate, she has led the charge on a number of important and popular efforts, specifically veterans issues and ensuring the continued healthcare of 9/11 first-responders.
She has a long career as both a lawyer in the public and private sectors, and despite being essentially a hand-picked successor to Hillary Clinton in the Senate, she has avoided any of the drama that typically goes along with Clinton-association.
14. Congresswoman from Utah Mia Love
Congresswoman from Utah Ludmya Bordeau Love, who publicly goes by the nickname “Mia,” is the first Haitian American in Congress, the first black female Republican in Congress, and the first black representative of any gender elected to Congress from Utah. Since her election in 2014, she has been a prominent fixture in Republican politics, showcasing both youth and diversity in what’s thought of as the party of old, white men. She is also a member of the Mormon Church.
Love rode the second Tea Party wave into Congress, and has taken positions (if only rhetorical) that wing of the party agree with. However, when actually in office, she has proven to be more reasonable than most Tea Partiers/Freedom Caucusers are given credit for. She objected to the 2013 government shutdown and came out against Donald Trump for president, a candidate most Tea Partiers endorsed wholeheartedly. Nonetheless, her message of fiscal responsibility and personal liberty is one that seems capable of surviving that shift.
15. Congresswoman from Michigan Debbie Dingell
Debbie Dingell ran for the seat her husband John Dingell vacated when he retired. Like Clinton, before this office her main political experience was being a Congressman’s wife. However, during the election of 2016 she proved that she understood her state better than anyone else in the party.
While she was an early Clinton supporter, behind the scenes he warned the campaign that they were in trouble in her state. This insight and her connection to both the disaffected “white working class” base that elected her husband and her and the Democratic establishment make her a formidable force in future Democratic politics.
16. Congresswoman-Elect from Wyoming Liz Cheney
The daughter of the former Vice President of the United States, Liz Cheney has been a longtime Republican policy wonk in the State Department. During the Obama years, she spent her time beefing up her conservative credentials as a member of political action group and Fox News contributor. While she failed in her 2014 bid for the Senate, Cheney was elected to the House of Representatives in 2016. Her traditional conservative positions and experience in past administrations (as well as a recognizable last name) position her to be an influential member of the House almost right away.
17. Governor of New Mexico Susana Martinez
Since 2011, Susana Martinez has served as the governor of New Mexico, the first Hispanic woman governor in the country and the first female governor of her state. A Republican, she has focused on the pressing issues of her state, including a drought in 2012. She has worked to create close relations with the Native American population in the state, working with 22 tribes to protect lands and water rights. While her economic record is checkered, she remains a popular governor in the state, who may have her eyes on D.C.
BONUS: Hillary Clinton
Surprise, suckers! Yeah, you made it all the way through this list only to find that it’s bookended by Hillary Clinton. But, since this is a “who to watch” list, it’s safe to say both Clinton’s supporters and critics agree this woman deserves “watching.”
It’s become a custom that people who’ve tried and failed to run for president essentially semi-retire from public life. Mitt Romney and Al Gore make appearances here and there, often speaking about political causes, but (until this all-hands-on-deck election) didn’t make too many waves politically.
It appears that Hillary Clinton is doing just that, not necessarily “hiding” or “laying low,” but also seemingly content to be done with it all, if just for a time. It will be interesting to see how future female candidates handle the inevitable Clinton questions/comparisons sure to come their way. Will they embrace her or will they run from her? It will be equally interesting to see what sort of role Clinton carves out for herself as a private citizen and if the press will even allow it.
Hillary Clinton has earned her place in history, and history is all connected. In 2016 women cast their vote for Clinton, and put their “I voted” sticker on the grave of Susan B. Anthony, a martyr for women’s suffrage. When the first woman is finally elected as Commander in Chief, she will walk to the White House on roads paved by Anthony, Clinton, and millions of other women.
What do you think? Who did we leave off the list? Share your thoughts and reactions in the comments below.