9 Reasons To Be Hopeful During The 2020 Election Chaos

Democrat Cori Bush has been elected to congress making her the first Black congresswoman for the state of Missouri. You might remember Bush from the brilliant documentary Knock Down The House which followed Bush, along with three other female Democrats running for congress in the 2018 mid-terms (including Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez). Bush did not win then, but she has now.

On Tuesday, more Native American people were elected to congress than ever before with six indigenous people winning their races. The Guardian reported that a record number of Native American women are in congress with Democrats Deb Haaland (pictured) and Sharice Davids retaining their seats and Republican Yvette Herrell winning in New Mexico.

Currently, the United States is on course to record the highest voter turnout in a century. A record-breaking amount of more than 100 million early votes have already come in - because of the Covid-19 pandemic - and large queues like this one in Maryland were reported on election day.

Delaware has made history by electing the US' first transgender state senator. According to NBC, Sarah McBride has become the US' highest-ranking transgender official. McBride has a long history of representing and advocating for the LGBTQ+ community and after being voted in tweeted: 'I hope tonight shows an LGBTQ kid that our democracy is big enough for them, too.'

As well as voting for the president and state senators, election day is also used to allow referendum-style votes on single issues. One of these was 'Proposition 17', allowing convicted felons the right to vote if they are on parole, which passed in California by 57 per cent. According to The Appeal organisation, this move restores the right to vote to more than 50,000 people. According to the group, it is African-Americans who are more likely to be disenfranchised in the state. The Public Policy Institute of California say 28.5 per cent of the state’s male prisoners are African American—compared to just 5.6 per cent of the state’s adult male residents.

Among the senators to be re-elected to congress are Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib - otherwise dubbed the squad' due to their reputation as young, progressive women of colour.

Mondaire Jones and Ritchie Torres have become the first openly LGBTQ+ Black and Afro-Latino men elected as congressmen.

Torres, who is Afro-Latino, was elected for the Democrat party in the Bronx area of New York, and thanked his supporters on Twitter saying: 'Tonight, we made history.'

Democratic Jones was also elected to congress in New York, counting 2016's presidential runner up Hillary Clinton among his voters.

Other single-issues appearing on the ballot were in Colorado where a more restrictive anti-abortion measure was put on the vote. Proposition 115, which aimed to curb the time limit for abortions to 22 weeks, was voted down in Colorado by 59 per cent.

However, in Louisiana, a proposition stating that nothing in the state's constitution protects the right to an abortion or the funding of an abortion was supported by 62 per cent.

The issue of abortion has always been a divisive one in the US but one that received further attention in recent months after Trump appointed Amy Coney Barratt - who has previously made anti-abortion remarks - to the Supreme Court, replacing the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg who supported a women's right to choose.

Florida is a state which has been closely followed over the course of the evening, as Democrats hoped to turn the state blue, but is ultimately projected to have voted for Trump.

However, there was another vote in the southern state taking place. Citizens voted in support of raising the minimum wage to $15 (£11.55) per hour, up from the current minimum wage of $8.56 (£6.59), according to the Washington Post.