The 2018 midterm elections are already slated to be historic when it comes to number of women candidates running and amount of campaign spending. But there’s another reason that this next cycle could change everything for America – a significant number of female candidates could set new firsts in elected politics in a variety of demographics, breaking glass ceilings for women for decades to come.

Currently there are only six sitting female governors and only 39 women have ever served as governors in the nation’s history (for comparison, there are 44 male governors in office just right now). With just 22 women senators, 84 female representatives, and five women delegates, Congress is less than 20 percent female. But with more than 500 women running in these races – the vast majority of them not incumbents – the face of Congress and the governorship could change for good.

Here are some of the women who could make history this year.

Image no longer available

Primary date: March 6

Governor’s race: Sheriff Lupe Valdez is used to being an underdog. She grew up in a family of migrant farm workers and became a four-term sheriff in Dallas County, the second most populous county in Texas. Now, if she can do the improbable and win the governor’s mansion, she would break barriers both as the first Latina governor and the first openly gay governor in the state.

Image no longer available
Gina Ortiz Jones

Texas is about 40 percent Latino, yet no Latina has ever been elected to Congress. El Paso native and former county judge Veronica Escobar could be the first if she wins the seat that was held by Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Escobar, who also served as a county commissioner, received O’Rourke’s endorsement for her campaign. Running in a different Texas congressional race is Gina Ortiz Jones, who if successful would open up an entire list of firsts – first lesbian, Iraq War veteran, and first-generation Filipina-American to represent Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives. She also would likely be the first person who left the Trump administration and ran for office to oppose that same administration. Jones, who worked in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under President Barack Obama, left her position six months after President Donald Trump was inaugurated, unable to stomach the policy changes enacted by the new leadership.

Update: Valdez won a runoff against Houston investor Andrew White on May 22. She will face Governor Greg Abbott in the general election. Escobar won her primary, and Ortiz Jones also won in a runoff.

Image no longer available

Primary date: March 20

Image no longer available
Jeanne Ives

Governor’s race: No woman has ever held the governor’s office in Illinois, and for Jeanne Ives the race will be an uphill battle. Ives, a staunch social conservative with three terms in the state house, is challenging Republican incumbent Governor Bruce Rautner from the right for the GOP nomination. Ives has made her campaign about the governor’s “abandoning” the party on abortion and LGBT policy and has aired ads depicting trans activists, women, and union representatives “thanking” him for supporting their liberal agendas. The ads were dubbed “transphobic,” “racist,” and “anti-immigrant,” by many in her party and outside it.

Update: Ives narrowly lost her race to the Republican incumbent Governor Bruce Rautner.

Image no longer available

Primary date: May 15

Image no longer available
Paulette Jordan

America has never elected a Native governor, and Idaho state Rep. Paulette Jordan hopes this midterm will be the chance to change that. The 38-year-old Idaho state representative is a Coeur d’Alene Tribe member, and the youngest person to serve on their council. Idaho hasn’t had a Democratic governor since 1995, but Jordan has experience ousting Republican incumbents and hopes to replicate that statewide in November. Jordan is competing against Boise School Board member A.J. Balukoff for the party nomination

Update: Jordan won her primary and will face Idaho Lt. Gov. Brad Little in November.

Image no longer available

Primary date: May 15

Image no longer available
Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson

Shavonnia Corbin-Johnson, who was raised in foster care before being adopted by her grandparents, has said she never expected to go to college, but not only did she graduate from Georgetown, she worked as an adviser in the Obama White House. Now she is hoping to become the youngest female member of Congress at just 26 years old. She faces military veteran and Lutheran pastor George Scott for the Democratic nomination.

Update: Corbin-Johnson lost to Scott in the primary.

Image no longer available

Primary date: May 22

Image no longer available
Jan Morgan

Like Ives in Illinois, Fox News commentator and Tea Party activist Jan Morgan is challenging an incumbent Republican governor for the party nomination. Morgan, who is best known for publicly banning Muslims from being allowed to shoot at the firing range she owns, has criticized sitting Governor Asa Hutchinson for not signing a “ban on Sharia law” that the state legislature passed in 2017.

Update: Morgan lost to Hutchinson in the primary.

Image no longer available

Primary date: May 22

Image no longer available
Stacey Evans

If a Democrat wins the governor’s race in Georgia this year, the state will have its first female governor: Stacey Evans, who served in the state legislature for seven years, is facing off against Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia House minority leader. If Abrams wins, it won’t just be a historic victory in Georgia, it will be the first time an African American woman is elected governor in the nation’s history. “A guy can try something and not be successful and it's just about him,” she told Cosmopolitan. “But when you’re a person of color, when you're a woman, when you’re a woman of color in particular, you mess it up, and other people get tarred by your decision-making. You never act alone.”

Update: Abrams defeated Evans in the primary and will face Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle or Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who will square off in a runoff in July.

Image no longer available

Primary date: June 5

Image no longer available
Mai-Khanh Tran

California pediatrician Mai-Khanh Tran was brought to the United States at age 9 after months in an orphanage in Vietnam. Now she wants to bring her health care advocacy to the House, where she would be the first foreign-born immigrant woman to represent California. “Women are constantly having to struggle to demand their own healthcare rights,” she told ELLE last year. “We're not some secondary concern. We're half the population.” Also hoping to score a first is Sara Jacobs, a former contractor at the Obama State Department and staffer for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. If the 29-year-old Jacobs wins her race, she could be the youngest woman in Congress. “Our system is broken, and it needs to change,” Jacobs told Cosmopolitan. “And that starts by changing the face of power in this country.”

Image no longer available

Primary date: June 5

Image no longer available
Abby Finkenauer

: Abby Finkenauer is also hoping to be the new youngest member of Congress. At 29 years old, Finkenauer has already served two terms as a state representative and is facing off against former Labor Department employee Thomas Heckroth in the Democratic primary to challenge Republican Rep. Rod Blum in the 1st district. “I know a lot of people look at me and think, ‘But there's no way that this girl will have the resources she needs to take on a guy like Rod Blum,’" she told ELLE. “…We are here to prove that you don’t have to be a millionaire to run for office. You don’t have to sell your soul. Because I'm not. And I sure the heck won't.”

Update: Finkenauer won her primary with 67 percent of the vote.

Image no longer available

Primary date: June 5

Image no longer available
Sally Doty

: Mississippi has never sent a woman to Congress – and is just one of two states that can say that (Vermont is the other one). Second-term state senator Sally Doty could be the first if she wins the GOP primary, since there is no Democrat even running at the moment. Although there are a number of candidates for the 3rddistrict seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Gregg Harper, including two other womenhealthcare executive Morgan Dunn and education consultant Katherine TateDoty is the only one who has any legislative experience, giving her a foot up in the field.

Update: All three women lost in the primary, as Michael Guest and Whit Hughes advanced to a runoff.

Image no longer available

Primary date: June 5

Image no longer available
Deb Haaland

Deb Haaland already broke ground as the first Native woman to chair a state party. Now she is taking her expertise at getting candidates elected and focusing it on herself in the hopes of being the first Indigenous woman elected to Congress. Haaland told Broadly, “I just felt like my voice — considering the fact that we've never had a Native American woman in Congress — might be a voice at the table that Congress has never heard. I could bring something significant to decision making.”

Update: Haaland won her primary. She will face Republican Janice Arnold-Jones in November.

Image no longer available

Primary Date: June 12

Image no longer available
Mary Mayhew

Both parties have women candidates that are currently top contenders to their nominations. On the Republican side former Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew is hoping to be the first female governor, and Democrat and state attorney general Jane Mills wants the same. Both have to get through crowded primaries first. Republican Governor Paul LePage, who has a history of sexist and racist remarks, including comparing public campaign financing to “giving your wife your checkbook,” cannot run again due to term limits.

Image no longer available

Primary Date: June 12

Image no longer available
Chris Giunchigliani

County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani could be Nevada’s first female governor if she wins in November, and she’s been racketing up endorsements from EMILY’S List and unions on her path to get there. But first she has to win a primary over Clark County Commission Chair Steve Sisolak. Nevada is one of the key states the Democratic Governor’s Association is focusing on in 2018 , and current Republican Governor Brian Sandoval is not running due to term limits.

Image no longer available

Primary date: June 26

Image no longer available
Cynthia Coffman

In Colorado three women are vying to be the state’s first female governor. Former state treasurer Cary Kennedy and current Lieutenant Governor Donna Lynne both are competing in the Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. Jared Polis. Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman is hoping to nab the Republican slot. Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper is not running for re-election due to term limits.

Image no longer available

Primary date: June 26

Governor’s race: There are seven Democrats vying for the party nomination, but only one woman - Krishanti Vignarajah. A former State Department employee and policy director to First Lady Michelle Obama, the Sri Lankan-born Vignarajah would be the state’s first female governor – and it would be the first office Vignarajah ever held. “If President Obama and the first lady taught me anything, it was how a fresh perspective and new generation of leadership can change the world,” she told Cosmopolitan. “And frankly, the Democratic Party needs that at the state level now more than ever.”

Image no longer available
Aruna Miller


Senate race: Former U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning is also running an insurgent campaign, challenging incumbent Democratic Senator Ben Cardin for the party endorsement in Maryland. A victory would mean the first transgender woman elected to the Senate, though, as of February 2018, Manning was polling far behind Cardin.

House of Representatives: Maryland state delegate Aruna Miller

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 2

Image no longer available
Marsha Blackburn

If Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn wins in 2018, it will be the first time the state elects a woman to the Senate. Blackburn is known for her House select committee investigation into claims that Planned Parenthood sold fetal remains after abortions. Now she is the GOP frontrunner for replacing retiring Republican Senator Bob Corker. Democrats are putting up a strong contender in former governor Phil Bredesen, but Blackburn’s campaign has been unconcerned, referring to Corker and other mainstream GOP as “tired old men in Washington” and arguing that anyone who thinks she can’t win statewide is “just a plain sexist pig.”

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 7

Image no longer available
Sharice Davids

Shawnee attorney and member of the Ho-Chunk nation Sharice Davids is fighting through a field of male candidates in the hope of being the first Native woman elected to Congress. Davids, who served as a White House fellow in the final year of President Barack Obama’s administration, would also be Kansas’s first openly gay representative if she wins the seat. “It wasn’t part of my decision. … but I’m definitely proud to be part of this time in history. I think there will be a lot of historical things happening in the 2018,” she told the Kansas City Star. If Davids wins the primary, she will challenge Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder.

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 7

Image no longer available
Rashida Tlaib

While there are two Muslim men in Congress currently, no Muslim woman has ever been elected federally. Former state representative Rashida Tlaib broke that ground already in Michigan, and now will try to do so in the House of Representatives, where she is vying to replace Democratic Rep. John Conyers in the Michigan 11th (Conyers left the chamber after being accused of sexual harassment). “It is something that is inspiring to many people – even if you’re not Muslim – to know that a girl like me who grew up poor in south Detroit, who didn’t speak English when I started school, with a faith that is literally being targeted every single day by not only this administration but the media, could run and win and make history,” she told the Detroit News. Fayrouz Saad, also a Democrat, is running for an open seat in the Michigan 13th, a somewhat more challenging task since it trends more conservative. Saad was previously appointed to the Department of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama.

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 14

Image no longer available
Rebecca Otto
Minnesota not only has never elected a woman governor, neither major party in the state has even nominated one. That could change this year, where there are three women running in the Democratic primary: state representative and chamber majority leader Erin Murphy, three-term state auditor Rebecca Otto, and state representative Tina Liebling. The Republicans also have a female candidate – Woodbury mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens – though she would have a much harder primary fight if former Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty enters the race.

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 14

Image no longer available
Christine Hallquist

Openly transgender politicians are now winning local races at record number. Christine Hallquist, former CEO of the Vermont Electric Cooperative, is aiming even higher , as she hopes to be country's first openly transgender governor. Hallquist is one of three candidates currently running in the Democratic primary for the Vermont governor’s race and would eventually face off against Republican Governor Phil Scott.

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 14

Image no longer available
Kelda Roys

With Republican Governor Scott Walker appearing vulnerable, Democrats are lining up to challenge him in the midterms. Among them are Kathleen Vinehout, a state senator, and Kelda Roys, a state representative. Although both are Democrats who serve in the legislature, Roys is more aggressively in favor of reproductive rights. Vinehout formerly worked with activists from Democrats for Life – an anti-abortion Democratic political group – on some policy issues, and has been a staunch defender of “conscience clauses” but says she “has always been pro-choice,” according to Rewire News.

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 28

Image no longer available
Kyrsten Sinema

The leading contenders on both sides of the aisle to replace retiring Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona are all women, making it a near certainty that Arizona is going to have its first female senator sworn in next year. While Republicans Kelli Ward and Rep. Martha McSally continue to battle it out into a primary, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has a strong lock on the Democratic nomination. That means if she wins in November, Sinema – already the first openly bisexual member of the U.S. House of Representatives – would become the country’s first openly bi senator. McSally, the more moderate of the two GOP contenders, served in the military for 26 years and became the first female fighter pilot in history before running for the House. She launched her Senate bid by telling Republicans to “grow a pair of ovaries.” Ward is a Tea Party activist and state senator, and was praised by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as the “only true conservative” in the race.

Image no longer available

Primary date: August 28

Image no longer available
Gwen Graham

Women tried and failed to win the Florida governor’s race for the last two cycles, but former congresswoman Gwen Graham is hoping to finally succeed. Graham is currently the frontrunner in a tight and crowded Democratic primary and would then face off against an as of yet unknown GOP nominee. Republican Governor Rick Scott cannot run for reelection due to term limits. At the Women’s March this year, Graham said the state needed “a woman to clean up the mess in Tallahassee” after so many years of male leadership.

House of Representatives: If Florida attorney Lauren Baer wins her race in the 18th district, she will be the first woman in a legal same sex marriage to serve in Congress (former Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was the first man to do so). A policy advisor to former U.S. Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Baer is challenging Republican Rep. Brian Mast. “I am not running as a gay candidate. I’m running as a candidate who is gay. We share the same values as other folks, have the same concerns for our daughter as other folks have for their children,” she has said.

Image no longer available

Primary date: September 4

Image no longer available
Alexandra Chandler

: Former military intelligence analyst Alexandra Chandler

This article was originally published on March 5, 2018, and has been updated.

Follow Robin on Twitter.