It was hard to miss the moment Rashida Tlaib won her primary election. On Aug. 8th, Tlaib beat out five other Democratic candidates in Michigan's 13th Congressional District, securing her spot in the November midterms, where she'll run unopposed and likely become one of the first Muslim woman ever elected to Congress.



It'll be another first for Tlaib, who was also the first Muslim woman to be elected to Michigan's Legislature, where she served from 2008-2014, when she reached the term limit. The 42-year-old single mother, who is the oldest of 14 children and the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, then worked as an attorney at the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice.

But the decision to run, to put herself out there, to give her state a chance at electing a Muslim woman to Congress? That came easily for Tlaib. Shortly after her win, she told me that staying outside the rink wasn't going to fly. "As a social justice lawyer, I started marches against Trump here in Detroit. I've worked on a number of incredible social justice and economic justice campaigns, and when the moment came where this seat opened, staying out wasn't an option... it was almost like a decision was made. It was time for someone like me to run for office."

And she's one of many. In the year of the Democratic "blue wave," more than 90 American Muslims have decided to run for office. One of those woman, Ilhan Omar, will most likely join Tlaib in Congress; she won the Democratic primary in Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional District and could also become the first Somali-American in Congress.

Was Tlaib scared to take on this historical run? Of course she was. It's that very fear, she thinks, that can make it hard for women to run for office. There's a vulnerability that comes with it. So sometimes women wait to be asked. But Tlaib knew she had to do it, and she wanted to run exactly as herself.

I think for me to win, the success of this campaign... it brought a light in a moment of darkness for many of us.

"I wasn't going to change the way I dressed, the way I spoke," she told me by phone. "I'm very proud to be Arab. I'm very proud to be a Detroiter. I'm very proud to be of Muslim faith. To be the young mom. All of those things come with who I am, and I didn't shy away from that. To this day, in 2018, they maybe say, 'You shouldn't talk about being a mother because people will say, maybe she should be home taking care of the kids.' That's the reality of running as a mother and as a young person. I paused, I smiled, and I said, 'That's not just who I am.' And I proceeded to move forward."

Tlaib ran on an aggressively progressive platform, supporting Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, and tuition-free college. She didn't take donations from corporate PACs. She wants to get Democrats out to vote, to believe in the political process. On her campaign, she surrounded herself with people that also believed in that process, the idea that it should work for everyone and not just for some. She says she's glad her approach resonated with her congressional district families—that they wanted a fighter.

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She also found courage in people like Omar, who shares her faith but also understands the hardships that come with it, like the Islamophobic attacks on social media. And she's excited it could be people like them in Congress, people like Jahana Hayes, the 2016 Teacher of the Year who could be Connecticut's first black Congressional Democrat, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's set to be the youngest Congresswoman ever. All those sisters, she said, they're going to bring a certain energy to Congress. There will be a different lens, she says, the lens of refugees, of working moms, of teachers. And she knows the American people will embrace it.

Her own 13-year-old son Adam is ecstatic about her win; it's proof, to him, that bullies don't win. Her 7-year-old son Yousif thinks she's going to Congress to give Trump a timeout. "We'll see if he agrees to it," she said, laughing.

I asked her about a story I've heard her tell a few times in interviews, about a young Muslim American woman who came up to her and told her she had to win because it would prove that Muslims belong. "That's when I felt the pressure... that 'you have to win' because if you win, our children will know that being themselves, being who they are, that they can succeed," she told me. "That whatever the President is saying, that whatever the people that support the President are saying, everything that's happening against Muslims in our country, it is all not going to be this complete darkness. That there is light. And I think for me to win, the success of this campaign... it brought a light in a moment of darkness for many of us."

Madison Feller Madison is a staff writer at ELLE.com, covering news, politics, and culture.

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