Tammy Duckworth keeps smashing glass ceilings
Rep. Tammy Duckworth is shattering glass ceilings of her own.
The Illinois Democrat won Tuesday's Senate race against her Republican opponent, Sen. Mark Kirk. When she takes office, Duckworth with be the first female U.S. senator to have seen combat.
Duckworth will also be only the second Asian-American female senator.
Her victory over Kirk restores a seat to Democrats that was once held by President Barack Obama. The president joined Duckworth at an October rally in Chicago, saying he could "not think of a better person to represent this state that I love."
Tuesday isn't the first time the two-term congresswoman has broken important barriers. She set even more "firsts" when she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2012.
She was the first Asian-American elected to Congress in Illinois and the first member of Congress born in Thailand.
Duckworth also became the first disabled woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She lost most of her right leg, part of her left leg and damaged one of her arms while serving as an Army pilot in Iraq.
The senator-elect was deployed in 2004, a year after the U.S.-led invasion began. Iraqi insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade into a helicopter Duckworth was co-piloting. Despite her critical injuries, Duckworth still helped land the helicopter. She was later awarded a Purple Heart.
"There's been members of my family serving in uniform on my father's side going back to the Revolution," Duckworth said during an Oct. 27 debate with Kirk in Springfield.
She noted that she is a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a service organization for women who descend directly from a person involved in the U.S. fight for independence.
"I'm proud of both my father's side and my mother, who is an immigrant," Duckworth said.
The Illinois Senate seat was the first in any state to flip from Republican to Democrat. It also puts Democrats one step closer to regaining a majority in the Senate.
Topics Barack Obama Elections Senate
Maria Gallucci was a Science Reporter at Mashable. She was previously the energy and environment reporter at International Business Times; features editor of Makeshift magazine; clean economy reporter for InsideClimate News; and a correspondent in Mexico City until 2011. Maria holds degrees in journalism and Spanish from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College.
