As President Barack Obama takes one more term in Washington, D.C., more than a dozen Yale alums are also headed for political office.
The night saw a victory for many Yale graduates in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown ’74 (D) was re-elected to the Senate and Rhode Island Congressman Sheldon Whitehouse ’78 (D) also became a senator. Other Yale alums re-elected included Congressman Lamar Smith ’69 (R) from Texas and Congressman John Yarmuth ’69 (D) from Kentucky, as well as incumbent Senators Amy Klobuchar ’82 (D) of Minnesota and Bill Nelson ’65 (D) of Florida.
Other alumni returning to Congress include Tom Cole GRD ’74 (R) of Oklahoma, Lois Capps GRD ’64 (D) of California and Eleanor Holmes Norton GRD ’64 (D), the District of Columbia’s nonvoting House delegate. David Price ’64, GRD ’69 (D) and Mel Watt LAW ’70 (D) — both of North Carolina — will also join Congress.
New members of the House of Representatives include Ron DeSantis ’01 (R) of Florida and Elizabeth Etsy LAW ’85 (D). Etsy, representing Connecticut, defeated fellow Yale alum Andrew Roraback ’83 to clinch the seat.
Yale alumni were also successful outside of Washington, D.C. Jack Dalrymple ’70 (R) was reelected the governor of North Dakota.
And though results from Alaska’s House of Representatives race have not yet been confirmed, Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins — a Yale student who took a break in 2011 to work on a writing project in Alaska before running as a district representative — was narrowly in the lead as of Wednesday morning.
Go Bulldogs!