Ohio’s Third District has named a new state senator last week, a 27-year-old financial analyst from Canal Winchester — Democrat Tina Maharath.
America’s first Laotian-American state senator beat out Republican Representative Anne Gonzales with a total of 705 votes, according to Franklin County officials.
Maharath was in Bangkok, Thailand when it was announced that she is the new senator of Ohio’s Third District; however, she expressed her gratitude to those who supported her during the elections through a Facebook live video.
“It’s currently 4:30 in the morning in Bangkok and I just got woke up from my sleep because I’m a new senator! It doesn’t feel real right now,” she said, delivering the good news to her 2,417 followers on Facebook.
“I couldn’t have done this without everyone’s support. Thank you everyone for all the contributions from all over the world, everyone who voted for me, everyone who has graced me, everyone who was there for me when I wanted to give up because I just kept thinking, ‘‘I’m a woman, I’m a minority, I live in Columbus, they don’t want me.’ Well, I just won! I didn’t need a recount,” she continued.
The lady senator earlier told Cleveland.com that she was “absolutely surprised” by the result of the elections as she was not expecting herself to win the Senatorial race “unless hell froze over.”
Maharath was reported to have a”troubled past” in which she experienced being arrested for selling alcohol to minors, had bankruptcy after divorce, and hit a man with her car.
Due to this, the Democrats were “skeptical” to endorse Maharath and instead they supported lawyer Nathan Dowds. Dowds, however, failed to submit required signatures for him to run for office. The party then endorsed Katherine Chipps, but the latter was defeated by Maharath in the primary.
The newly elected lawmaker, NextShark reported, will push for the creation of a state commission for Asian Americans, anti-discrimination laws to cover the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT+) community, and expansion of Medicaid, among others.