United States of America

Voters head to the polls in Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont on Tuesday. This week’s round of primary voting will once again set the stage for more history-making moments for women in politics. Voters head to the polls in Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont on Tuesday. Those ballots feature candidates poised to break barriers on behalf of the LGBTQ community, women of color and gender parity in politics as a whole.

By Kate Zernike,

The energy in the midterms is working against female Republican candidates who are reluctant or unable to claim any advantage to being a woman among voters.

Diane Harkey, the Republican candidate for California’s 49th Congressional District, recognizes that President Trump “doesn’t make women real comfortable.”

MJ Hegar does not hold back. "I'm an ass kicking, motorcycle-riding, Texas Democrat. That's who I am!"

She says that emphatically, unblinkingly and unapologetically to a constituent at a political meet-and-greet in a suburban Austin, Texas, home. And she is talking to someone she needs to win over.

First Donald Trump inspired Katie Muth to tell her husband about her rape, then he galvanized her into running for office.

Muth had been married for about five years, but never told her husband about the man she says raped her after the rehearsal dinner of a wedding years before they met.

Men in positions of power are dropping the ball, according to former president Barack Obama, who thinks perhaps a way to fix that is to get more women at the table.

Democrats, in particular, have high hopes for the impact women could make in the fall's midterm elections. But the former president spoke about the importance of having more women in leadership positions globally, particularly in Africa.

After years of being told to put on a suit and recite their résumé, women running for office are now revealing themselves in more complex ways.

The guys at the union hall have just swapped out the first keg when Abby Finkenauer, Democratic candidate for Congress, arrives and immediately reveals the kind of vulnerability that campaign consultants have long told women to avoid.

At a McAlister's Deli, tucked in one of the miles of strip malls that line Manchester Road among the shoulder-to-shoulder suburbs of west St. Louis County, Helen McCauley and her daughter Sara didn't hesitate when asked recently about the coming political season.

"I don't always vote the midterm elections, but this time I definitely will," said Helen, whose politics lean left, with a focus on women's issues.