2012: The Year of the Woman Senator

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When the new Congress is seated in January, it will include a record number of women.

Wins for Democrat Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, Republican Deb Fischer in Nebraska, and Democrat Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin will make all three the first female senators from their state. And Democratic women successfully defended their Senate seats in Missouri, Minnesota, California, Michigan, Washington, and New York. Meanwhile, Hawaii will send either Democrat Mazie Hirono or Republican Linda Lingle to the Senate, meaning that there will be at least 18 19 women in the Senate—and it could still be 19 20 if Democrat Heidi Heitkamp pulls out a win in North Dakota.*

* It looks like we undercounted in our initial estimate. 

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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