Women Making History Running for Senate

Updated: July 6, 2020
Original: June 15, 2020

The upcoming U.S Senate race is tense with the Republican party defending 23 seats and the Democratic party defending 12. Three female candidates, if elected, will all make history as the first Democratic women to be elected in their respective states.

Meet state Rep. Sara Gideon, 48, from Maine’s House of Representatives; Amy McGrath, 45, former Marine fighter pilot running in Kentucky; and Tamara Johnson-Shealey, former Georgia House of Rep and current businesswoman running in Georgia. Democrats will need either three or four seats in order to gain control of the Senate, including defending Sen. Doug Jones in Alabama.

Sara Gideon

AUGUSTA, MAINE — 12/03/14 — House Assistant Minority Leader Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, speaks after being sworn in Augusta on Wednesday. Troy R. Bennett | BDN

Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, Sara Gideon began her political career in Maine as the vice chair for the Freeport Town Council in 2004. In 2012, she was elected to the House of Representatives, 2014 she was re-elected as the Assistant Majority Leader in the House, and in 2016 she was elected as the Speaker of the House.

Over the years, Gideon has fought for issues like affordable healthcare, increasing economic opportunity, fighting for a woman’s right to choose, and combating Maine’s opioid epidemic. She runs for senate on a platform believing there are far too many politicians in Washington who are focused on special interest groups rather than on the people’s interests.

She is running against Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who has served that position since 1997. Sen. Collins, who has had bipartisan support throughout her career, has recently come under speculation for her decisions to vote for the Republican Tax Bill and for Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court Justice. The election takes place November 3, 2020.

Amy McGrath

“Fed up with” Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Amy McGrath wants to unseat the career politician who has shown unwavering support for Pres. Donald Trump. Her extensive military career began when she was 21.  As a new graduate from the military academy, she was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

She and a fellow marine pilot were the first female aviators in the Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 121. Throughout her career, she’s flown over 85 combat missions and was the first female to fly a F/A-18 jet in combat. Since 2011, after returning home from her second tour in Afghanistan, she has served as a defense and foreign affairs advisor, worked at the Pentagon as a Marine Corps liaison, and was the senior political science instructor at the United States Naval Academy.

Her campaign site mentions that when she was 13 years old, she dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot. At the time, it was against law for a woman to be in combat, so she wrote to her senator, McConnell (R), but never heard back from him. She faced State Representative Charles Booker (D) on June 23, 2020,  and won the primaries in a close election. She will now face McConnell for his senate seat on November 3, 2020, in the general election.

Tamara Johnson-Shealey

Tamara Johnson-Shealey built and managed her own nail salon business for 10 years and has been a licensed technician for 18 years. Becoming concerned with federal tax policies and the deregulation of health and safety guidelines, she started The Concerned Beauty and Barber Professionals. The organization has successfully introduced policies and procedures that better ensure the health and safety of the owners, employees, and consumers of the health and beauty industry in Georgia. Shealey ran for Georgia State Senate (District 40) three times in 2014, 2016, and 2018. She garnered 37% of the vote in 2014; 43% in 2016; and 32% in 2018.

She will be running against Kelly Loeffler (R) in a special election on November 3, 2020, to carry out the remaining two years of Johnny Isakson’s (R) term. Shealey is running on a platform fighting for issues like social justice and civil rights protection, gun control laws, voting rights, revitalizing rural Georgia, criminal justice reform, the environment, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, equality in education, and Medicare for all.