North Dakota becomes second-to-last state to elect a woman to Congress

BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota has become the 49th state to elect a woman to the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Republican Julie Fedorchak secured the seat in a safely red at-large congressional district race, according to the Associated Press. 

Before her congressional campaign, Fedorchak has served since 2012 on the North Dakota Public Service Commission, winning re-election to the post twice with wide margins. She was a favorite going into the general election against Democrat Trygve Hammer, as North Dakota is a deeply red state that Donald Trump carried by more than 30 points in both 2016 and 2020. 

By electing Fedorchak, North Dakota has left Mississippi as the only state in the U.S. that has never sent a woman to the U.S. House. She will be the only female representative from North Dakota in Congress this term. 

The history of women in U.S. politics has been one of discrimination and struggles to break the “glass ceiling” preventing them from advancing in political careers. 

Four years before the 19th Amendment secured the right for women to vote in the U.S., Montana Rep. Jeannette Rankin was sworn in on April 2, 1917. She was the first woman to serve in the House and while her first term in the House only lasted two years, she was elected again in 1940. Rankin remains the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana. 

In 2024, the number of women representing their states in Congress is significantly higher than it was more than 100 years ago. Especially within the last two decades, the number of women in the highest legislative body in the country has grown at an explosive rate. In 2003, the 108th Congress had 60 women in the House. Twenty years later, that number has more than doubled. 

In fact, women made up more than a quarter of the 118th Congress, the highest number in U.S. history. In the Senate and House of Representatives, 126 of the country’s 540 voting and nonvoting members were women.