A black transgender activist, Andrea Jenkins, was elected to the Minneapolis City Council. A Hispanic woman won the mayor’s race in Topeka, Kan. A Sikh man was elected mayor in Hoboken, N.J. Latina, Vietnamese and transgender female candidates won state legislative races. Black candidates were elected lieutenant governor in New Jersey and Virginia. A Liberian refugee in Helena, Mont., was elected mayor.
Mark Keam, a Korean-American Democrat who was re-elected on Tuesday to his seat in Virginia’s House of Delegates, said the wave of first-time minority candidates was a direct response to feeling snipped out of the American picture by Mr. Trump’s policies and divisive language.
“In Trump’s America, people are getting screwed and those getting screwed more than others are people who’ve never had a voice in the government,” Mr. Keam said. “Those are motivations a white guy wouldn’t have.”
