A record 12 women will be their states’ highest-ranking elected officials when female governors-elect are sworn in in the coming months.

The figure exceeds the mark of nine female governors set in 2004.

Among them are the democrat Katie Hobbs in ArizonaDemocrat Maura Healey in Massachusetts and the republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansaswho won last week’s elections.

“It is not a gradual growth. We are still far from political parity for women in the executive branch. But it seems like a big step forward,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. “It’s significant because these executive positions have been very hard to come by. These women alter in many ways what “a governor” can be.

Sandersdaughter of the former governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee and who served as Press Secretary at the White House during the government of the former president Donald Trumpwill be the first woman to assume the governorship of your State. DobbsFor her part, she will be the fifth woman to hold the position in her state when she is sworn in at the beginning of January.

Most of the dozen female governors are Democrats, with eight belonging to that party to four representing the Republican Party. This is consistent with the fact that there are more women who identify as Democrats than Republicans in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and state legislatures.

Other milestones in the group are the recently elected governor of OregonTina Kitteny Healey of Massachusettswho are the first two openly lesbian governors. Kitten happens to the governor Kate Browna Democrat who identifies as bisexual and who was the first woman to openly LGBTQ+ elected governor in the country in 2014.

Despite the progress made, there was not much racial diversity. New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat of Latino descent, was re-elected. Three black women — Stacy Abrams of Georgia, Deidre DeJear of Iowa and Yolanda Flowers of Alabama — won the Democratic nomination for governor but were defeated by incumbent Republican governors last week.

The other governors are: the Republicans Kay Iveyof Alabama; Kim Reynoldsof Iowa; y Kristi Mentionof Dakota of the South, and the Democrats Kathy Hochulfrom New York; Janet Millsof Maine; Gretchen Whitmerof Michigan; and Laura Kelly of Kansas.

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