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2018 could break the record for number of women in the Senate twice

Tina Smith makes 22 in the 100-person chamber, and the midterms could bring more.

With the swearing in of Minnesota Democrat Tina Smith on Wednesday morning, there are now more women in the Senate than ever before — and the 2018 midterms could bring more.

Smith makes 22 women serving in the Senate — still far from half of the 100-member chamber, but with women competitive in a number of 2018 races, they stand to boost their numbers.

Formerly the lieutenant governor of Minnesota, Smith will be taking over for Al Franken, who resigned in December amid allegations of sexual impropriety. She’s planning to run in the November special election to finish out the final two years of Franken’s second term. At least one Republican, Minnesota State Sen. Karin Housley, plans to run, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

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With the November midterms, the total number of women in the Senate could jump to 25, with women in competitive races in Tennessee, Arizona, and Nevada. Those women are:

  • Marsha Blackburn, the Republican from Tennessee who appears poised to defeat former Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat
  • Kelli Ward, the Republican running for Jeff Flake’s seat in Arizona

Jacky Rosen, Democrat of Nevada, currently serving a term in the House, who’s challenging Republican incumbent Dean Heller for his Nevada Senate sea

The increase in the number of women in the Senate assumes that all the incumbent women hold their seats, but some of them, namely Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and also a Democrat, are facing competitive races in 2018.

Smith will serve in the Minnesota delegation alongside Amy Klobuchar, putting Minnesota among the four states currently represented in the Senate by two women: California, New Hampshire, and Washington. California was the first state to ever send two women, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein (both Democrats), to serve alongside each other in the Senate at the same time, in 1993. Since then, four other states — Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, and Washington — have been represented by two women at the same time.

Prior to Smith, a total of 50 women have served in the Senate over the years, according to a report from the Center for American Women and Politics, part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. That means nearly half of all the women who have ever served are currently in office. Of those 50 senators, 33 were or are Democrats, vs. 17 Republicans.