Tomorrow, January 3, 2018, will mark an all time record of the number of women who have served in the US Senate.
When Tina Smith is sworn in by Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday, she will be the 51st woman to serve in the US Senate, and the 22nd presently to serve in that august body.
Tina Smith will replace Al Franken from Minnesota in the Senate, and this will be the first time that four states have had two women Senators representing them at the same time—California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Washington, with all eight women being Democrats.
17 of the 22 Senators on January 3 are Democrats, and 5 are Republicans.
17 of the total of 51 will have been Republicans, and 34 will have been Democrats.
18 states are presently represented by women Senators, and 29 have had women Senators historically.
North Carolina and New Hampshire have had a woman Senator succeeded by a woman of the other party, and had both parties represented by their women Senators concurrently in the case of New Hampshire.
The following 5 states have had 3 women Senators in history—California, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, and New Hampshire.
The following 11 states have had 2 women Senators in history—Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington.
The following 13 states have had 1 woman in the Senate—Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin.
11 of the total of 51 have served by appointment or had brief terms, with Tina Smith having the upper hand to keep the Minnesota seat since she was Lieutenant Governor when chosen to hold the seat for a year, facing an election in 2018.
The likelihood is that we will see more women in the Senate in the next few years, with several women competing for Senate seats in a number of states, and with Democrats still greatly outweighing Republicans in the Senate by a ratio of more than 3-1.
Additionally, we are likely to have four women Senators, all Democrats, seek the Presidential nomination in 2020, an all time record if that occurs. This would include Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Kamala Harris of California, and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.