The 2024 election season ended with Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to lead a major party presidential ticket, losing massively to Donald Trump.
Liberals were left distraught that the ultimate glass ceiling wasn’t finally shattered once and for all.
Rubbing salt in their proverbial wound, the most powerful women in the world now share one trait – they’re all Trump supporters.
Incoming First Lady Melania has already signaled that she will play a more pivotal role in her husband’s second administration.
MAGA die-hard Karoline Leavitt has been tapped to shape Trump’s messaging on the world stage as his press secretary. And Alina Habba, Trump’s trusted legal adviser, will be taking a role as his counselor.
Trump has also appointed women to some of his most senior Cabinet positions.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has been selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, giving her ultimate responsibility for the border, a $60billion budget and hundreds of thousands of employees.
Pam Bondi, the former top prosecutor in Florida, has been named as Attorney General.
Tulsi Gabbard, should she pass through Senate confirmation hearings, will serve as Director of National Intelligence, giving her massive power at a crucial time in geopolitics as the U.S. faces threats from Russia and China.
In other top roles, Trump has appointed Janette Nesheiwat as Surgeon General, Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor chief, Linda McMahon as head of Education and Brooke Rollins to lead the Department of Agriculture.
Former First Lady Melania Trump is also prepares to make her way back to Washington for a second term in the White House.
Some women will serve in the incoming Trump administration including if confirmed in the Senate, Pam Bondi as attorney general. Susie Wiles will be the first women ever to serve as a White House chief of staff. Former First Lady Melania Trump is also expected back in Washington when her husband takes office
Susie Wiles will also be the first woman ever to serve as White House Chief of Staff while Karoline Leavitt will be the youngest ever White House press secretary at 27 years old.
Former First Lady Melania Trump is also preparing to make her way back to Washington for a second term in the White House.
A body language expert suggested that Melania is feeling more secure in her shoes as she’s set to become the first lady for a second time next month.
She appeared alongside President-elect Donald Trump earlier this month to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, part of celebrating his Time magazine ‘Person of the Year’ win.
Habba, incoming counselor to Trump, recently told DailyMail.com that she hopes to use her new White House role to secure for Americans the same protections she fought to get for Donald Trump during his lawsuits.
Specifically, she said her passion lies in preventing weaponization of the legal system against U.S. citizens.
‘I fought for President Trump, but now I get to fight for America to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody,’ Habba told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., will be stepping down from the House to take the top role at the United Nations representing the United States.
Trump’s 33-year-old aide Natalie Harp with the nickname ‘human printer’ will be by his side once again.
Karoline Leavitt (left) with Margo Martin
Alina Habba, Trump’s trusted legal adviser, will be taking a role as his counselor
She will be joined by the glamorous Margo Martin, Trump’s right hand communications adviser who has been confused with Melania in the past.
There are other powerful roles being occupied by women, particularly in Congress.
Women overall are down as are the number of Republican women lowering the total representation as a whole, but the number of Democratic women in the House will set a new record.
With MAGA firebrands Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace, there should be no shortage of drama on Capitol Hill.
Mace recently proposed a measure that would block the first transgender member of Congress Sarah McBride from using biological women’s restrooms in the U.S. Capitol.
‘He is a man,’ Greene said of McBride. ‘He is not allowed to use our women’s restrooms, our women’s gym, our locker room, our spaces that are specified for women. He’s a biological. He has plenty of places he can go.’
It started a ‘trans war’ in the Capitol prompting Speaker Mike Johnson to step in and rule that McBride cannot use the women’s restrooms.
North Dakota elected the first woman to represent the the state in the House with Republican Julie Fedorchak set to take office in January.
Rep-elect Julie Fedorchak (R-N. Dak.) is the first woman elected to represent North Dakota in the House. With her election, Mississippi will become the only state to have never elected a woman to the House
Bynum will be the first black woman to represent Oregon while Pou will be the first Latina to represent New Jersey in the House
She will represent one of two states that never had a women representative in the House, leaving Mississippi as the only state starting next year to have never elected a woman House member.
Women of color also will mark milestones with Oregon electing the first black woman to Congress with Janelle Bynum flipping a House seat.
Nellie Pou will become the first Latina woman to represent New Jersey when she is sworn into the House next month.
On the Senate side, there will be two black women senators serving at the same time for the first time in January with the election of Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks.
For the first time ever there will be two black women serving in the U.S. Senate at the same time starting in January
Rep-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.) will be the first transgender woman to serve in the House
Blunt Rochester is also the first woman elected to represent her state in the Senate.
Overall, there will be 25 women senators in January, one shy of the record set in 2020. There will be 125 women House members.
According to Kelly Dittmar from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), how women do in congressional elections is also a partisan story because women make up close to half of Democratic nominees but are just over 15 percent of GOP nominees. When Democrats do well, there tend to be more women elected.
Republicans will hold a slim majority in the House come January. But the 119th Congress is on track to have no women elected to chair any House committees come January after Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) lost her bid for the House Foreign Affairs Committee gavel.
Current House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) is retiring, and House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) is term-limited.
The last time no woman led a single standing committee in the House was nearly 20 years ago in the 109th Congress from 2005 to 2006.
There will also be no women in the very top Senate leadership roles, but Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.) will serve as Republican Policy Committee chair while Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) will serve as Democratic Steering and Policy Committee chair.
In the House, Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) will serve as Republican Conference chair while Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) will remain minority whip.
Women governors hit an all-time high
Women will also hold a record number of governors’ offices next month, but it will only be temporary.
That’s because when Republican Kelly Ayotte is sworn into office in New Hampshire in January, the total number of women governors will reach 13 for the first time ever.
Governor-elect Kelly Ayotte (R) will become the latest woman governor in the U.S. when she is sworn in to represent New Hampshire in January. While she won’t be the first woman governor of the state, the total number of women governors will tick up to a new record briefly when she joins the ranks
However, Governor Kristi Noem is expected to leave her office in South Dakota soon after if confirmed to serve in the Trump administration as Secretary of Homeland Security, bringing the number back down to the current record of 12.
That record will also tick up to 14 women governors for a brief few days as a short game of political musical chairs plays out in Delaware.
That’s when the state’s governor steps aside to become the newly elected mayor of Wilmington and Lieutenant Governor Bethany Hall-Long briefly holds office before the state’s new governor is sworn in.
For a short time when Ayotte takes office there will also be a record five Republican women governors serving at the same time beating the current record of four.
When all the shake-ups are said and done to start the year, the total women governors is set to settle at 12, matching the current record first set in 2023.
State legislatures see uptick in women
The U.S. is on track to have more women serving in state legislatures next year than ever before, and women will hold majorities in three state legislatures for the first time after women have long trailed men when it comes to representation at a state level.
New Mexico and Colorado are expected to join Nevada with majority women legislatures when new members are sworn in.
Nevada was the first state to elect a women-majority state legislature in 2018. Arizona also temporarily had a women-majority legislature, but it has since changed.
In the new year, nearly 62 percent of Nevada’s state legislature will be women while 52 percent of Colorado’s and nearly 54 percent of New Mexico’s will.
Seven individual state legislative chambers in total will have women in the majority across the country for the first time including Nevada’s House and Senate, Arizona’s Senate, California’s Senate, Colorado’s House, New Mexico’s House and Oregon’s House.
Three states including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico will have majority women legislatures in the new year hitting a new record. Seven state legislative chambers in total will have women majorities
At least 2,450 women will serve in state legislatures nationwide starting next year which makes up 33.2 percent of all state legislative seats. That’s a slight uptick from the current record of 2,431 women state legislators set in 2024.
Dittmar noted progress in terms of representation at a state level is clearing being made, but that does not mean big changes are on the way because of it.
‘There’s not one thing that happens because there’s a majority women,’ she said.
‘When you talk to women in these spaces, they will talk about the benefits of having more women and creating a normalization of women’s leadership in these spaces,’ Dittmar said.
‘At the same time, they will remind you parity in numbers doesn’t always equal parity in power, and these institutions are still often burdened with very male and white roots,’ she added.