Democrat Sharice Davids won her election on Tuesday night, defeating Republican incumbent Kevin Yoder in Kansas’ 3rd District.
Davids becomes the first openly gay Kansan to be elected to Congress. She is also one of the first two Native american women to ever be elected to Congress, The other, Debra Haaland of New Mexico, also won her race on Tuesday.
Davids used her MMA background as a center-piece of her campaign. In one particular ad, Davids can be seen preparing for a fight as she talks about how President Trump and the Republicans “don’t give a damn” about people like her.
In the ad, Davids says: “This is a tough place to be a woman. I’ve been put down, pushed aside, knocked out. It’s clear Trump and the Republicans in Washington don’t give a damn about anyone like me or anyone who doesn’t think like them.”
The 3rd District has been trending left as of late. Hillary Clinton won the district by one point in 2016, after Republicans carried it in 2008 and 2012.
“Davids is a member of the Wisconsin-based Ho-Chunk Nation and has lived and worked on Native American reservations,” NBC News reports. “Now a resident of the Kansas City area, she attended Johnson County Community College and Cornell Law School before serving as a White House fellow during the end of the Obama administration.”
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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