Native American women make history with election to US Congress

Democratic candidates Deb Haaland from New Mexico and Sharice Davids from Kansas made history by becoming the first Native American women to be elected to the US House of Representatives, according to provisional data.

Haaland won in the traditionally Democratic congressional district 1 against Republican opponent Janice Arnold-Jones, with 59 per cent of the votes, with 36 per cent to the conservative candidate, reports Efe news.

From this historic triumph, Davids was elected with 53 per cent of the votes and 44 per cent going to her Republican opponent Kevin Yoder, with all votes counted.

Davids, a former mixed martial arts fighter and lawyer, is the first Native American woman and the first openly LGBT person from Kansas elected to Congress.

Haaland, who led the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017 and was the state's Native American vote director for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2012, will fill the vacancy left by Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, who won the governor's election.

More than 10,000 people have served in the House of Representatives and nearly 1,300 in the US Senate and not one of them was a Native American woman.

--IANS

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