Democratic voters rallied on Wednesday for the chance to make history in November by selecting a ticket filled with female candidates, including a bid to elect the first African-American female governor in the United States.

Stacey Abrams won the party’s nomination for governor in Georgia, where she faces long odds in a Republican-dominated southern state testing divergent Democratic strategies.

She was among a slate of candidates selected by voters in four states to advance to the November midterm elections. “Our state’s rich and complicated history courses through our memories on nights like tonight, when the unexpected becomes the truth,” Abrams told supporters, recalling Georgia’s place in the civil rights movement.

Abrams defeated Stacey Evans, a white candidate who argued Democrats could not win without also persuading white moderate voters who can swing between parties.

Contests in Texas and Kentucky also moved women to the forefront of the fight for the US House of Representatives, where Democrats need to wrest 23 seats from Republicans to gain control.

Several races were a referendum on divisions within the Democratic party. Ken­tucky Democrats picked a female former Marine fighter pilot, Amy McGrath, in a snub to the party establishment for a US House seat district that Democrats hope to put into play. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had promoted her opponent, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, to take on US Representative Andy Barr, the Republican incumbent, in November.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2018