How Women Candidates Changed American Politics in 2018

For the last several months, Haley Stevens and Lauren Underwood have been sending each other lots of emojis. As first-time women candidates running in Michigan and Illinois, they were part of a surge of new Congressional candidates aiming to flip GOP-held seats in crucial swing districts.

But as young women running to serve in a Congress where they were far outnumbered by older men, they were also just trying to keep each other going.