Women in the United States Senate After retiring from the Senate, she married former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN). Kassebaum has the distinction of being the first female elected senator who did not succeed her husband in Congress (Margaret Chase Smith was only elected to the Senate after succeeding her husband to his House seat). At the time of her retirement in 1997, Kassebaum was the second longest serving female senator, after Smith (Since 1997 five women have had Senate careers longer than Kassebaum's). The first woman in the Senate was Rebecca Latimer Felton, who served representing Georgia for only one day in 1922. Hattie Caraway became
Women in the United States Senate Senate, 12 of whom were truly competitive. Louisiana also had a female senatorial candidate, but she did not make the run-off. Catherine Cortez Masto was among those elected in 2016; she was the first Latina Senator. In 2016, Kamala Harris was the first woman to defeat another woman from the same party, U.S. Representative Loretta Sanchez, in a general election. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire hold the distinction of being the first and second women elected both governor and senator of a state; both served as Governor of New Hampshire and served together in