McSally was the second woman to serve as a U.S. senator from Arizona. Sinema was the first, which made Arizona one of six states with two women serving as its senators (the others are California, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Washington). Only once before have two female senators representing the same state at the same time been of different parties (in New Hampshire from 2011 to 2017). McSally was the first senator ever appointed to serve alongside someone to whom she initially lost an election, and the first to serve alongside a colleague she lost to in the election immediately preceding the inauguration. McSally and Sinema were the second pair of senators to serve together after having campaigned against each other the year before; the first such instance occurred in 1996–97 in Oregon, when Democrat Ron Wyden defeated Republican Gordon H. Smith in a special election, only for Smith to win the regular election for the state's other Senate seat later that year.