More than 100 women were elected to Congress alone. We can’t tell every story, but here are a few highlights from the year:

1. SHARICE DAVIDS AND 2. DEBRA HAALAND
There has never been a Native American congresswoman, and as of the 2018 midterms, there are two. Davids, who represents a district in Kansas, is also a trained lawyer, a former mixed-martial arts fighter, and is gay (Kansas, you’ve come a long way). She’s young, too, and will hopefully have a long political life ahead of her.

3. GRETCHEN WHITMER
Gretchen Whitmer won the governorship in Michigan, and one of her major campaign platforms was to tackle the water crisis in Flint. She succeeds a male Republican, Rick Snyder, whose legacy is trying to spin the Flint issue with publicity stunts rather than solve it. Her predecessor made excuses, but I think this female leader will make progress.

4. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman elected to Congress and it shows when she runs social media circles around GOP heavy-hitters. She represents a working-class district in New York City, and she comes from a working-class background herself, having tended bar for years. She’s living proof that a law degree is not the only useful background for a politician. She is unapologetically progressive, referring to herself as a Democratic-Socialist, she’s smart, and she has ambitious plans to battle climate change and income inequality at the same time, with a Green New Deal. Without waiting to officially take office she has already used her platform as a Congresswoman-Elect to point out hypocrisies in the House and government, like an amazing health care plan for largely wealthy politicians when the same body has resisted granting that kind of health care to all citizens and voters.

5. KYRSTEN SINEMA
Sinema is Arizona’s first openly bisexual senator. She won Republican Jeff Flake’s seat, and the female GOP candidate she defeated – Martha McSally – will serve alongside her. McSally was appointed to the late John McCain’s vacated seat for the remainder of his term, though only after Sinema beat her. The formerly GOP-controlled state has suddenly gotten a lot more purple.

6. LAUREN UNDERWOOD
Lauren Underwood, only a couple of years older than Ocasio-Cortez and a fellow woman of color, also provides an atypical background. Instead of a lawyer, she is a nurse. Her background in a caring profession should make for an interesting and different perspective compared to her many law-trained colleagues. Like many of the other women on this list, Underwood is a Democrat newcomer who unseated a Republican incumbent.

A young black woman defeating an older, wealthy, and politically advantaged white man. If there is a story to this year politically, surely that encapsulates it.