Democratic candidate Catherine Cortez Masto became the first Latina senator in U.S. history Tuesday evening by defeating Republican candidate Joe Heck for the vacant seat opened up by Harry Reid’s retirement. Cortez Masto, 52, was Nevada’s attorney general from 2007 to 2015 and received the endorsement of Reid on his way out of office. She won the state’s Democratic primary by a wide margin, besting her next-best challenger Allen Rheinhart 81 percent to 6 percent.
