Hillary Clinton was the First Woman Nominated by a Major Party fact

Was Hillary Clinton the First Woman Nominated For President?

Hillary Clinton became the first woman nominee of a major U.S. political party at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

Clinton was nominated by her party after a roll call on Tuesday 26, 2016, later that evening she accepted the nomination via video. She officially accepted her nomination in person during her acceptance speech on Thursday 28, 2016.

Thus, Hillary Clinton is the first woman to be nominated by a major U.S. political party, and the first woman to have accepted a nomination from a major U.S. political party.^[1]

TIP: Hillary Clinton was also the first woman to win the Popular vote for President (despite her electoral college loss).

Other Woman Nominated For President

Although Hillary Clinton was she the first woman nominated by a major party, she was not the first woman nominated by a U.S. political party in a Presidential race.

Victoria Woodhull got the nomination for her progressive Equal Rights Party in 1872 (before women had won the right to vote in all states). Woodhull was followed by Belva Ann Lockwood, who was nominated for the same party in 1884 and 1888. Starting in the 40’s we find a long list of women running for every type of party from the far-left Communist Party to the far-right Right to Life Party.^[2][3]

Despite the successes of minor party female nominees, Hillary Clinton’s achievement stands alone because her nomination is from a major party, and her total votes are unprecedented for a female candidate.

• Hillary got 16,784,477 votes in 2016, which resulted in her getting more delegates than Bernie Sanders (she also had more pledged superdelegates).
• In 2008 Hillary had received 17,857,501 votes but had lost the nomination to Barack Obama.
• For comparison, the most votes earned by a woman in an election previous to Hillary included Jill Stein (2012 – nominated for Green Party) 468,907 votes, and Shirley Chisholm, the first major-party black candidate for President of the United States, and first black congresswoman (1972 – Candidate for Democratic Party) 430,703.

FACT: On August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted American women the right to vote—a right known as woman suffrage. Despite this, in some Southern states, African American women were unable to freely exercise their right to vote up until the 1960s when Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed under Democrat LBJ (an act that drove many Southern Democrats out of the Democratic party).

FACT: Wyoming, the first state to grant voting rights to women, was also the first state to elect a female governor. Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) was elected governor of the Equality State (Wyoming’s official nickname) in 1924. From 1933 to 1953, she served as the first female director of the U.S. Mint.^[4]

Being Nominated and Accepting the Nomination

On Tuesday 26, 2016, the Second Day of the DNC convention at the Roll Call of the official counting of delegates and superdelegates Bernie Sanders called to suspend the rules. He moved that the roll count be recorded as is, and then moved to have Hillary nominated by acclamation (a voice vote). He had been projected to come in a close second but had fewer pledged delegates than Clinton.

The party then nominated Hillary Clinton by acclamation at which point she became the first woman nominee [of a major political party]. Later that evening she accepted the nomination via video, and then two days later on Thursday 28, 2016, Hillary officially accepted the nomination during her acceptance speech which closed out the Democratic National Convention.^[5]

TIP: See a timeline of women in Politics or the List of female United States presidential and vice-presidential candidates.

1. ‘We Are Preparing to Shatter the Highest Glass Ceiling in Our Country’
2. See a timeline of women in Politics
3. List of female United States presidential and vice-presidential candidates
4. 19TH AMENDMENT
5. The 2016 Democratic convention – live updates