A record-breaking number of women ran for office in 2018, drawing a comparison with 1992, a year which was dubbed the “Year of the Woman” after four women were elected to the United States Senate and made history.

In fact, the most read Los Angeles Times article in 2018 was a piece about the midterm election titled, “How Many Women Won?”

Alex Cohen sat down with one of these women, Katie Porter, who defeated two-time incumbent Mimi Walters and flipped a longtime Republican district in Orange County.

More than 270 women ran for Congress and governor this year, and for 45^th district Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter, she had a definite reason for running.

“I decided to run a day after the election of Donald Trump,” Porter explains.

She had just watched the election with her neighbors at a community center the day before.

“So many of them were very upset … but none of them were talking about the fact that we just elected a congressperson who shared Donald Trump’s values. I really felt that disconnect.”

As a UC Irvine law professor and a single mother of three, Porter became one of 102 women elected to the U.S. House. Prior to this year’s election, there were only 84 women.

“People understood the importance of a presidency in their lives,” Porter says on her decision to run for office. “But [they] didn’t understand [that] in Orange County we have a say in what happens in Washington.”