A midterms of firsts: Records set for women, Black people, gay people, Muslims, Latinos and Indigenous people

On election night on Tuesday, a recurring phrase slipped into many reports about newly elected senators, representatives, and governors: “This is the first time that...” Americans delivered a resounding rebuke to Donald Trump and his policies in the midterms, but they also elevated a record number of candidates who are not heterosexual white men to some of the country’s most important offices. The elections also mark a milestone for gender equality. The Democrats have announced that, for the first time in history, their party will have at least 100 women in the new House of Representatives.The Senate that takes office next January will include its first Muslim member. It will also include the first openly gay man. For the first time, a Black woman will head a state. A Native American will also do so. And Texas will have its first Latina governor. All signs point to — for the first time in the nation’s history — the speakership of the House of Representatives, the third-highest ranking office in the country after the president and vice president, being held by a Black man.Below is a list of the men and women who will make history when they are sworn into office.Abdul El-SayedEl-Sayed is one of the breakout stars of this election. Never before has a Muslim been elected to the Senate, a chamber of only 100 seats (two per state) that forms the true aristocracy of U.S. politics.After his victory was confirmed, El-Sayed addressed the Islamophobic attacks he faced during the campaign from Republicans such as President Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance. “See, they hate the idea of an America big enough for anyone who looks a little different, or prays a little different, or whose family comes from a different part of the world. That includes me, but it also includes anyone and everyone who doesn’t look like them, pray like them, love like them, or isn’t rich like them,” he said in his victory speech.Chris PappasPappas will be the next Democratic senator from New Hampshire. He will also be the first openly gay male member of the upper chamber. Lesbian senators have preceded him, such as fellow Democrat Tammy Baldwin, and Senator Harris Wofford revealed a same-sex relationship after leaving office. But no openly gay politician had ever run for office without hiding their sexual orientation.Pappas, who did not make his sexual orientation a campaign theme, did mention his husband on Tuesday in his victory speech. “I want to thank the guy next to me, my amazing husband [...] I’m the luckiest guy because I’m married to a man that I love. And despite all the negative attacks and the lies, it’s nice to know that love and truth prevailed tonight,” he said.Hakeem JeffriesThe fact that Jeffries was reelected this Tuesday as a congressman is not the main point. What is close to giving him a historic role is that the Democrats have won a majority in the House of Representatives. If all goes according to plan, they will elect him as the next speaker of the House. If that happens, he would be the first African American to hold that post.Keisha Lance BottomsBottoms won the election in Georgia and will become the first Black woman governor of a state. The former mayor of Atlanta will also be the first woman governor of Georgia. “Yesterday I visited Crawfordville, my family’s town for at least five generations. It was the town that was home to the former governor of Georgia and the vice president of the Confederate States of America, Alexander Stevens. I visited the grave of Betsy Peek, my great-great grandmother, who was born in 1845, 20 years before emancipation. In a cemetery filled with unmarked graves, I found hers. So yes, Crawfordville produced the Confederacy’s vice president. But tonight it also produced your next governor,” she said in a speech on Tuesday.Gina HinojosaHinojosa makes history as the first Hispanic woman elected governor of the state of Texas, which until this Tuesday had been considered a Republican stronghold. The Democratic Party had not won an election there in more than three decades.Deb HaalandHaaland will be the next governor of New Mexico and the first Native American to lead a state government. The victory by the former interior secretary for Joe Biden — an office in which she also made history — comes at a time when Native Americans, who make up 12% of New Mexico’s population, are gaining influence across the country.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition