Kay Hagan (1953-2019)

I was a little boy the last time a challenger beat an incumbent president.  It is perhaps because of this that while I have always been a political nerd, it was in the Senate that I spent most of my geekdom, pouring over Senate results because there were more opportunities for my side to win, more opportunities for the candidates I was cheering for to have that blue checkmark next to their name.  So while I was heartily cheering for Barack Obama in 2008, I remember that election with fondness because the Senate races nearly all swung the Democrats' way, and no candidate felt more like a victory for me than Kay Hagan.

Hagan's race had seemed like a pipe dream.  She had been a random member of the State Senate, a respectable candidate to be sure, but she was running against incumbent Elizabeth Dole, a woman who just ten years earlier seemed like she might become our nation's first female president, and was the wife of one of the most storied figures in the Senate in the late 20th Century.  Dole, however, was beatable, and was caught sleeping late in the Senate race against Hagan, who would prove in her two Senate contests to be a truly gifted politician.  Dole threw a "Hail Mary" pass by calling Hagan, a devout Presbyterian, "godless" and it ended badly for her.  Many think of 2008 as the year Obama carried Kay Hagan to victory, but it might have been more the other way around-Hagan actually won that election by eight points while Obama won it by less than a percentage point.

Outrunning Obama became something of a theme of Hagan's Senate career, and she nearly did it twice.  In 2014, like many of her colleagues, Hagan was hammered for supporting the ACA, and was one of five Democratic Senate incumbents to lose that cycle, but her election was the closest, losing by just 1.5 points despite the Republican Party throwing all they had at her.  Considering her political skill and clear connection with the North Carolina electorate, Hagan was heavily recruited in 2016 to run against her former colleague Richard Burr, but she demurred, perhaps hoping to reclaim the seat she'd won against Dole in 2008.  Her health took a tragic turn late in 2016, and any hopes of a political comeback were extinguished, with her dying just three years later.

Kay Hagan never held any other high office, and so she will forever be remembered as a one-term senator, one who rode in on a blue wave and rode out on a red one.  We oftentimes relegate figures like Hagan to historical footnotes, figures who are named in passing but seldom discussed in congressional history, and you may be wondering why I'm devoting a blog obituary, something we almost never do here (this will only be the sixth in the past two years) to such a figure.

But the reality is that Kay Hagan is perhaps the best example of how the lower case figures of history can make truly seismic impacts.  Hagan's one term was small, but mighty.  She supported Planned Parenthood and the nearly 4 million people who count on the organization each year.  She voted to overturn "Don't Ask Don't Tell" to give gay and lesbian soldiers the right to be who they are.  And of course there's her most lasting legacy, as she was the crucial 60th vote on the Affordable Care Act.  Because of Kay Hagan, millions upon millions of Americans have access to healthcare, and will live longer, healthier, and more open lives.  These votes were not easy-they likely cost her her seat, but Kay Hagan was not someone who did the right thing only when it helped her personally.  She represents the dozens of brave individuals who saw the chance to make the country a better place through expansive health coverage, and decided that even if it meant their seat, it was worth making their constituents' lives better.  I think that's a very proud legacy to leave behind, and one worth celebrating.