Maria Cantwell

Maria Cantwell is an American Democratic politician who has represented Washington in the United States Senate since 2001, where she is the state's junior senator. She was born in 1958, grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, and studied at Miami University before moving to Seattle to work on Alan Cranston's 1984 presidential campaign. Her elected career began in the Washington House of Representatives, where she served from 1987 to 1993, and continued in the United States House of Representatives from 1993 to 1995. She lost that seat to the Republican Rick White in 1994, then worked briefly in the technology sector as a marketing vice president at RealNetworks. She returned to politics in 2000 and defeated the Republican incumbent Slade Gorton in one of the closest elections in the state's history. Voters reelected her in 2006, 2012, 2018 and 2024. She is the second woman to represent Washington in the Senate, after Patty Murray.