(Bloomberg) -- Two Black women, Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester, have won US Senate seats representing Maryland and Delaware, breaking another barrier in a 235-year-old institution long dominated by White men.
Only 12 Black people have served in the Senate, and only three of them have been women. Never before have two Black women been seated at the same time.
The two Democrats will be sworn into office steps away from a desk that belonged to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.
Alsobrooks and Blunt Rochester join Kamala Harris and Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois as the only other Black women elected to the Senate. A Harris ally, Laphonza Butler, was appointed to serve the remainder of the late Dianne Feinstein’s term, but did not run to keep the seat.
The victories were a bright spot in an otherwise disastrous night for Senate Democrats, who ceded their majority after losses in key states.
“So as I prepare to step foot on that trail blazed by three strong Black women senators who came before us,” Blunt Rochester said. “I have a message to the young people who are standing up, speaking up and giving your all for your country and the world. I see you, I’m grateful to you, and you got next.”
More than 2,000 senators have served throughout US history.
Next year, there will be a record five Black senators, with Alsobrooks and Blunt Rochester joining Cory Booker of New Jersey, Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Tim Scott of South Carolina — the only Republican in this batch.
Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive and a former prosecutor, was a formidable fundraiser, enabling her to defeat two-term Governor Larry Hogan despite early polls showing a competitive race.
Hogan, who did not support Donald Trump and touted a bipartisan approach, condemned Alsobrooks for claiming real estate tax credits she wasn’t entitled to. She said she didn’t realize the errors. Alsobrooks, in turn, warned that Hogan would tip control of the Senate to Republicans and that he couldn’t be trusted on abortion rights despite his insistence he’d vote to enshrine those rights in the law.
“It’s remarkable to think that in two years, America will celebrate its 250th birthday. And in all those years, there have been more than 2,000 people who have served in the United States Senate. And only three have looked like me,” Alsobrooks said at her watch-night event in College Park, Maryland. “I want to salute all of those who came before me, who made it possible for me to stand on this stage tonight.”
During the primary, Alsobrooks defeated Democratic Representative David Trone, the founder of Total Wine & More who spent more than $62 million of his own fortune. Most of Maryland’s senior elected officials supported Alsobrooks, including Governor Wes Moore, the state’s first Black governor.
In 2016, Blunt Rochester was the first Black woman elected to the House from Delaware, President Joe Biden’s home state.
Blunt Rochester, who serves as a co-chair of Harris’ campaign, has sought to address inequities in health outcomes for minorities and pass funding for clean energy programs and infrastructure projects while vowing to fight in the Senate to restore abortion rights.
She’ll replace retiring Democrat Tom Carper, whom she worked for as an intern when he served as Delaware’s sole congressman and later as his labor secretary when he served as governor. She later served as deputy secretary of health and social services and as the state’s personnel director.
(Updates with Senate outcome in fifth paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected the number of Black people who have served in the Senate.)
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