WHEN WOMEN LEAD

Unless there’s a major upset in the next few weeks, President Joe Biden’s historic decision to end his presidential bid has left Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party. Regardless of your political persuasion, it’s exciting to see a woman receiving the major party nomination–Harris would be only the second woman to do so.
 
Beyond the previous female nominee, Hillary Clinton, there have been several women throughout American history who have paved the steps towards a woman president. Despite the fact that none achieved the office, their accomplishments and their drive each broke barriers for female politicians of the future. We wanted to bring your attention to a few of these unsung heroes. Biographical information is from the Center For American Women In Politics.
 
GETTING THE PARTIES STARTED
 
Before 1920, women couldn’t vote in the United States–but these brave individuals were determined to participate in the governance of their nation. Without their groundbreaking campaigns, the idea of a female president might never have existed.

Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1872) - The first woman to run for United States President, Woodhull was the candidate of the Equal Rights Party. Her opponents were Ulysses S. Grant (R) and Horace Greeley (D). Woodhull, born in Homer, Ohio on September 23, 1838, traveled with her parents practicing spiritualist activities. She fought for women’s rights and founded her own newspaper. She became the first woman to own a Wall Street investment firm. Died 1927.

Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood (1884 and 1888) - Lockwood ran for President under the banner of the Equal Rights Party in 1884, when the major party candidates were Grover Cleveland (D) and James G. Blaine (R), and in 1888, when the election was decided by the electoral college, with Grover Cleveland (D) winning the popular vote and Benjamin Harrison (R) winning the electoral vote and the presidency. She was admitted to the bar in Washington, D.C. in 1873. In 1879 she drafted the law passed by Congress which admitted women to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; she then became the first woman lawyer to practice before the Court. Died 1917.

WOMEN OF COLOR TAKING THE LEAD
 
These women fought to be representatives for both their gender and their ethnicity.

Shirley Anita Chisholm (1972) - Chisholm was the first African American woman to seek a major party’s nomination for U.S. President. She campaigned throughout the country and was on the ballot in twelve primaries in what was largely an educational campaign. She received 151.95 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention. Born in Brooklyn, New York on November 30, 1924, she graduated from Brooklyn College and earned a master’s degree at Columbia University. Chisholm served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983, the first African American woman to serve in Congress. Prior to her service in Congress, she served in the New York state legislature from 1964 to 1968. She was a school teacher and director of child care centers before going into public service. Chisholm died in 2005.

Patsy Takemoto Mink (1972) - Mink, the first woman of color to serve in the U.S. Congress, ran as an anti-war candidate in the 1972 Oregon Democratic presidential primary, winning two percent of the votes. An attorney, Mink served in the Hawaii territorial and state legislatures before winning a seat in the U.S. House in 1964. She served in Congress from 1965 until 1977, when she left the Congress after losing a U.S. Senate primary race. She served as assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs, as president of Americans for Democratic Action, and as a member of the Honolulu City Council before winning a special election and returning to Congress in 1990, where she served until her death in 2002.

INCHING CLOSER TO THE OFFICE
 
In the past 20 years, women have seemed closer than even before to reaching the Oval Office. These women have all been considered as serious contenders for president and won major percentages of primary votes.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (2008, 2016) -  Hillary Clinton served on the staff of the House Judiciary Committee considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon. After moving to Arkansas, she ran a legal aid clinic for the poor and was appointed by President Carter to the board of the United States Legal Services Corporation. She led a task force to improve education in Arkansas and served on national boards for the Children's Defense Fund, the Child Care Action Campaign, and the Children's Television Workshop. Continuing her legal career as a partner in a law firm, she led the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession. She was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York in 2000 and re-elected in 2006. The wife of former President Bill Clinton, she is the only First Lady of the United States ever elected to public office. President Obama appointed Clinton to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, a position she held from 2009-2013.  In April 2015, she announced her candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. In July 2016 Clinton became the first woman to be a major party's nominee for president. Despite winning the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, Clinton lost the Electoral College and conceded the general election on November 9, 2016.  

Carly Fiorina (2016) - Fiorina is a graduate of Stanford University, the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the MIT Sloan School of Management. In 1999, Fiorina became Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 business. After resigning her position at HP, Fiorina served in a number of advisory and policy-making positions for national and state governments and led a number of charities and nonprofits. She was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. In 2010, she won the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in California, but lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina is the chair and CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises. On May 4, 2015, she announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the only woman running for the Republican nomination. She withdrew from the race after poor showings in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. She received two percent of the votes in the Iowa caucuses and four percent of the votes in the New Hampshire primary.

Elizabeth Warren (2020) - Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. Before being elected to the Senate, Warren served as Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), was instrumental in the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and served as a law professor for more than 30 years, including nearly 20 years as the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Warren won 7.77% of the primary votes in 2020.

Amy Klobuchar (2020) - Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) has served in the U.S. Senate since 2006. She was the first woman to be elected to the Senate from Minnesota. A graduate of Yale University and the University of Chicago Law School, Klobuchar was a corporate lawyer before running for public office. Klobuchar was first elected as Hennepin County Attorney in 1998, making her responsible for all criminal prosecution in Minnesota's most populous county, and she was reelected in 2002.  

Nikki Haley (2024) most recently served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from January 2017 to December 2018. Prior to being appointed UN Ambassador by President Donald Trump, Haley served as South Carolina's first woman governor from 2011 to 2017. Haley, who is Indian-American, is also the first and only Asian American woman to serve as a U.S. governor. She served in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2005 to 2011. Haley came in 2nd or 3rd in the majority of the 2024 Republican Primaries.