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2018 was a banner year for scientists getting elected to public office. Now, a group that pushed hard to send some of those technically-minded folks to Capitol Hill is redoubling its efforts ahead of the 2020 election.

Last week, 314 Action, a political action committee that focuses on getting scientists and other STEM professionals elected to public office, announced an “aggressive strategy” for targeting 25 Congressional districts across the nation during the 2019-2020 election cycle. The group, which works only with Democratic candidates, wants to flip these Republican districts blue and expand the Democratic majority in the House. But specifically, it wants to fill the seats with engineers, medical doctors, geologists, physicists, and other STEM professionals who can leverage their technical expertise and training to tackle policy issues from the local to national scale.

“There are nine new members [of Congress] with a science background,” 314 Action Executive Director Josh Morrow told Earther, referring to the national candidates the organization endorsed who won their elections in 2018. “But I think we should have 90.”

The faces of Capitol Hill are changing.

When the 116th Congress heads to Washington in January, there will be a record number of women in the ranks -- at least 123, according to the news website Axios, including the first Muslim women, the first Somali-American, and the first Native American women.

There will be more scientists too.

On Tuesday, at least eight new science-credentialed candidates were elected: one senator and seven members of the House.  Full results are not yet available in Washington state, where a pediatrician is likely to be elected to the House.

The members of the 115th Congress include one physicist, one microbiologist, and one chemist, as well as eight engineers and one mathematician.  The medical professions are slightly better represented, with three nurses and 15 doctors.

The new winners will bolster those science ranks.  The Democratic candidates who won all ran successful campaigns with the support of a nonprofit political-action committee called 314 Action, which started in 2016 and is dedicated to recruiting, training, and funding scientists and healthcare workers who want to run for political office.  (One Republican engineer-turned-businessman won a race in Oklahoma, without support from the PAC.)

"Scientists are essentially problem-solvers," Shaughnessy Naughton, the president of 314 Action, told Business Insider before the election results came in.

Since Congress often wrestles with complex issues like climate change, cybersecurity, and how to provide fairer, cheaper healthcare, Naughton said she thought the US should put more scientists into the decision-making body.

"Who better to be tackling these issues than scientists?" she said.

Here's what to know about the new scientists heading to the Hill.

Jacky Rosen, a computer programmer who positioned herself as a moderate Democrat, beat her Republican opponent, Dean Heller, in the US Senate race in Nevada.

Rosen, who two years ago was elected to represent Nevada's 3rd District in the House, touted her role in the construction of a large solar array in a Las Vegas suburb that she said lowered her synagogue's energy bill by 70%.

During the campaign, she criticized Heller for his deciding vote on a law letting internet service providers sell consumer data without their permission.  Despite initially opposing efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Heller also changed his stance on the healthcare law and supported a Republican replacement plan.

Nevada's turnout was enormous, with twice as many early voters as there were in the 2014 midterm elections.

Chrissy Houlahan, an industrial engineer, Democrat, and Air Force veteran, won the House seat in Pennsylvania's 6th District.

Houlahan, who said she would focus on making healthcare more affordable, defeated her Republican challenger, Greg McCauley, a tax lawyer who has owned 20 Wendy's franchises, after Rep. Ryan Costello decided not to seek reelection.

Houlahan is one of several women who will represent states that currently have no women in the House.  She will be the 6th District's first Democratic representative since 2003.

In South Carolina's 1st District, which has been red since 1981, Joe Cunningham, an ocean scientist, defeated the Republican hopeful Katie Arrington.

Cunningham, who is also a lawyer, sparred with Arrington throughout the campaign over the future of offshore drilling.  His expertise in this area won over the Republican mayors of the coastal cities of Folly Beach and Isle of Palms.

Arrington, who has served in South Carolina's House of Representatives, does not oppose offshore drilling.  She emphasized national issues such as immigration and President Donald Trump's proposed wall along the US-Mexico border, while Cunningham focused on local issues.

Cunningham won the race by 4,036 votes, a margin of 1.4 percentage points.  An outcome with a margin of 1 percentage point or less would have triggered an automatic recount.

Sean Casten, a biochemical engineer, defeated Rep. Peter Roskam, the Republican incumbent, in Illinois' 6th District.

Casten, who founded a waste-energy recovery company with his father, was victorious in a district that had been a Republican stronghold since 1970.

Roskam, who has represented the district since 2007, has called the consensus on climate change "junk science."  After Casten decided to run, Roskam joined the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus.

During his campaign, Casten frequently criticized Trump and focused on healthcare, climate change, gun control, and LGBTQ rights.

Elaine Luria, a nuclear engineer, won her House seat in Virginia, becoming the first Democrat since 2008 to represent the 2nd District.

Luria, who joined the US Navy when she was 17, spent 20 years operating nuclear reactors as an engineer and Navy commander.  She defeated Rep. Scott Taylor on Tuesday after focusing her campaign on expanding the Affordable Care Act, pushing for tighter gun laws, and increasing the minimum wage.

Taylor, a former Navy Seal, was seeking his second term in Congress.  In September, The Virginian-Pilot reported that Taylor was subpoenaed to testify in a lawsuit alleging that some of his campaign staff members circulated fraudulent petitions to help get an independent candidate on the district's ballot.

In Washington state, Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, leads former state Sen. Dino Rossi.  She is on track to become the 8th District's first Democratic representative.

As of Wednesday afternoon, with more than 60% of precincts reporting, Schrier was leading Rossi, 52.9% to 47.1%.

According to The Seattle Times, at least 100,000 ballots had not been counted as of late Tuesday, though Rossi would need to capture about 55% of the remaining votes to upset Schrier.

Since the 8th District was created in 1983, only three Republicans have been elected to represent it. Schrier, who started her medical practice more than 15 years ago, also aims to become the first female doctor in Congress.

In Illinois' 14th District, Lauren Underwood, a registered nurse, unseated Randy Hultgren, the four-term Republican incumbent.

Underwood was a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Barack Obama.  In the role, she focused on preventing and responding to bioterrorism threats, public-health emergencies, and other disasters.

This year, Underwood focused her campaign on expanding access to healthcare, noting that she has a preexisting condition: an irregular heart rhythm.

She will be the first black woman to represent the 14th District, which is about 86% white.

The only new Republican scientist in Congress so far is conservative Kevin Hern, a former aerospace engineer and businessman who handily beat his Democratic challenger, attorney Tim Gilpin, in Oklahoma's 1st District, which includes Tulsa.

Hern's LinkedIn page says he holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Arkansas Tech University.

"While moving around during his early adulthood, Kevin worked a variety of jobs including working in the Aerospace industry for Rockwell, writing computer programs to automate tasks for businesses, real estate, and even hog farming," his campaign website says.

His dream at the time was to be an astronaut.  Then, the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986, and he pivoted to fast food.

"That was a very humbling experience," he said in a campaign video.  "I'd gone from working with PhD guys to, on Saturday morning, cooking Egg McMuffins with a 16 year old."

Hern is a vocal Trump supporter who wants to build up the Mexican border wall and repeal the Affordable Care Act.  He owns 10 McDonald's restaurants around the Tulsa area.  In Washington, he'll replace Rep. Jim Bridenstine, who's now the NASA administrator.

In New Jersey's southernmost 2nd District, Jeff Van Drew, a dentist, will replace Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo, who's represented that part of the state since 1995 and is retiring.

Van Drew, who's been a New Jersey state senator since 2008, sponsored legislation to help children with dyslexia, preserve farmland, and stop offshore drilling on the coast.

He has said his biggest focus on Capitol Hill will be increasing the number of jobs in New Jersey.

His opponent, the Republican attorney Seth Grossman, did not immediately concede the race as results poured in early Wednesday, though Van Drew locked in 52% of the vote.

All seven of the scientists endorsed by 314 Action who were up for reelection won their races. So did four other incumbent scientists.

They include:

Democratic Rep. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, a mechanical engineer.

Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, a doctor and medical-school professor who serves on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney of California, who's also on the House committee.

Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz of California, an emergency-room doctor.

Democratic Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois, a physicist who's also on the House committee.

Democratic Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, a mechanical and industrial engineer who serves on the House committee.

Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a physicist and Iraq War veteran.

Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, an industrial engineer.

Democratic Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California, a computer scientist.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California, a computer scientist.

Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York, a mechanical engineer.

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For American science, the next four years look to be challenging. The newly inaugurated President Trump, and many of his Cabinet picks, have repeatedly cast doubt upon the reality of human-made climate change, questioned the repeatedly proven safety of vaccines. Since the inauguration, the administration has already frozen grants and contracts by the Environmental Protection Agency and gagged researchers at the US Department of Agriculture. Many scientists are asking themselves: What can I do?

And the answer from a newly formed group called 314 Action is: Get elected.

The organization, named after the first three digits of pi, is a political action committee that was created to support scientists in running for office. It’s the science version of Emily’s List, which focuses on pro-choice female candidates, or VoteVets, which backs war veterans. “A lot of scientists traditionally feel that science is above politics but we’re seeing that politics is not above getting involved in science,” says founder Shaughnessy Naughton. 

“We’re losing, and the only way to stop that is to get more people with scientific backgrounds at the table.”

The administration is doubling down on its devastating 31% budget cut to the EPA -- a level that’s nearly unchanged from Trump’s March proposal.

Medical research and disease prevention would be among the hardest hit. This proposal reduces funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $5.8 billion, nearly one-fifth of its budget. That includes a $1 billion cut to the National Cancer Institute.

The Department of Interior [which is, to quote Wikipedia, “responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native American, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, territorial affairs, and insular areas of the United States”] would be cut by nearly 11%.  The Army Corps of Engineers [to quote Wikipedia, “one of the world's largest public engineering, design, and construction management agencies” and one “generally associated with dams, canals and flood protection in the United States“] would be slashed by 16%.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, responsible for responding to disease outbreaks domestically and around the world, would face a $1.2 billion cut.

Yes You Can! Scientists base decisions on facts. Some well known scientist politicians:  Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher

Many scientists are asking themselves: What can I do?

And the answer from a newly formed group called 314 Action is: Get elected.

The organization, named after the first three digits of pi, is a political action committee that was created to support scientists in running for office. It’s the science version of Emily’s List, which focuses on pro-choice female candidates, or VoteVets, which backs war veterans. “A lot of scientists traditionally feel that science is above politics but we’re seeing that politics is not above getting involved in science,” says founder Shaughnessy Naughton. “We’re losing, and the only way to stop that is to get more people with scientific backgrounds at the table.”

In just two weeks, more than 400 people have signed up to the recruitment form on the organization’s site. They include Jacquelyn Gill from the University of Maine, who studies how prehistoric climate change shaped life on the planet. “If you’d told me a year ago that I would consider running for office, I would have laughed,” she says. “I always fantasized about serving an administration in an advisory capacity, but we now have explicitly anti-science people in office and in the Cabinet. Waiting passively for people to tap me for my expertise won’t be enough.”

The latest far right fad is raw milk. Perhaps they regard Louis Pasteur as a woke socialist. Seriously, government health advisories about raw milk only make it more attractive to the conspiracy theory fringe.

Commentators on sites like Infowars, Gab and Rumble have grown increasingly vocal about raw milk in recent weeks. They see the government’s heightened concerns about the dangers as overreach. “They say: ‘Bird flu in milk! Bird flu in milk! Oh, it’s the scariest thing!’” Owen Shroyer said on the April 29 episode of his “War Room” podcast from Infowars. He added: “They’ll just make raw milk illegal. That’s what this is all about.” Public health officials have long warned Americans of the severe health risks that can come with drinking raw milk instead of pasteurized milk, which is heated to kill bacteria, viruses and other germs. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found more than 200 disease outbreaks linked to unpasteurized milk from 1998 to 2018, leading to 2,645 illnesses, 228 hospitalizations and three deaths.

The far right, including anti-vaxxers, seems to have an affinity for pathogens. Either that or they feel that pathogens don't really exist and perhaps were made up by Hillary Clinton and George Soros. Whatever they think, don't expect them to make sense.

Contrary to claims, there’s little or no evidence that drinking raw milk provides health benefits, including protection from certain infectious diseases, said Dr. Megin Nichols, the deputy director of the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases at the C.D.C. The Food and Drug Administration says pasteurizing milk kills the virus. The F.D.A. said in a statement that there are no scientifically proven benefits to drinking raw milk and that “the health risks are clear.”

Epidemics get rightwingers agitated. The latest bird flu outbreak has them acting like mad cows.

Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, a left-leaning watchdog that looked at the trend this month, said raw milk promotion had been intensifying on the right since the start of the bird flu outbreak. “What you have is a bunch of right-wing influencers who know that they can build substantial audiences and retain their audiences and excite their audiences by telling them that what medical authorities are saying about raw milk, about bird flu, is not credible,” Mr. Gertz said.

Basically the wingnuts are telling people: Don't trust science, trust Infowars instead! Paranoia is good for clicks.

As for bird flu, there is clear evidence of it being easily transmissible between mammals.

After mice drink raw H5N1 milk, bird flu virus riddles their organs

Despite the delusions of the raw milk crowd, drinking unpasteurized milk brimming with infectious avian H5N1 influenza virus is a very bad idea, according to freshly squeezed data published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison squirted raw H5N1-containing milk from infected cows into the throats of anesthetized laboratory mice, finding that the virus caused systemic infections after the mice were observed swallowing the dose. The illnesses began quickly, with symptoms of lethargy and ruffled fur starting on day 1. [ ... ] Before the mouse data, numerous reports have noted carnivores falling ill with H5N1 after eating infected wild birds. And a study from March in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases reported that over half of the 24 or so cats on an H5N1-infected dairy farm in Texas died after drinking raw milk from the sick cows. Before their deaths, the cats displayed distressing neurological symptoms, and studies found the virus had invaded their lungs, brains, hearts, and eyes.

So we have bovines, rodents, and felines all being infected by H5N1. Several primates (i.e. humans) have also been infected. But generally, humans whose health practices are influenced by the germ theory of infection stand a darn good chance of avoiding it.

Fortunately, for the bulk of Americans who heed germ theory, pasteurization appears completely effective at deactivating the virus in milk, according to thorough testing by the FDA. Pasteurized milk is considered safe during the outbreak.

As with 17th century patriarchy and religious practices, the fringe right seems eager to return to the medical dark ages before germ theory and vaccination. In the century between 1870 and 1970 life expectancy almost doubled because of related discoveries. The far right seems to have some sort of death wish.

Vote for pro-science candidates. Support groups like 314 Action which are dedicated to electing candidates with a science background.

A TV meteorologist in Des Moines resigned as a result of harassment from climate deniers.

A small but loud and aggressive group on the far right thinks it can cancel science when it contradicts their ideological extremism.

After spending the last two years as chief meteorologist at Des Moines news station KCCI, a CNN affiliate, (Chris) Gloninger announced Wednesday he is resigning as one of the many faces of local TV weather. His departure comes months after receiving a series of harassing emails from a viewer who disagreed with one thing he did on-air: he explained how weather was linked to the climate crisis. He also received other negative feedback via private messages and social media, which has become a common experience for weather and climate communicators. The decision was not easy, Gloninger told the Washington Post, but in a tweet announcing his exit, he cited a “death threat stemming from my climate coverage” which he said resulted in post-traumatic stress.

Death threats directed at people advocating real science are nothing new. We know how Galileo was persecuted by the Catholic Church for daring to prove Copernicus correct.

The emails from the viewer, according to screenshots Gloninger’s tweeted, called the meteorologist a “liberal conspiracy” theorist and told him to “go east and drown from the ice cap melting.” It escalated last summer when he received a more menacing threat from the viewer. “It is mentally exhausting and at times I have not been ok,” Gloninger tweeted at the time. “The threat of course was concerning, but the stream of harassing emails is even more distressing.” Gloninger said he plans to “embark on a new journey dedicated to helping solve the climate crisis,” in addition to spending more time with family. His last day is on July 7. A statement from KCCI about his departure said Gloninger plans to go into climate consulting: “Gloninger is leaving television to focus on caring for his family and his own mental health. He plans to pursue work in climate consulting.” Gloninger’s experience is not an isolated one. Climate change has become a highly politicized topic, despite hundreds of global scientists concluding it is “unequivocal” that humans have caused the crisis and that “widespread and rapid changes” have already occurred around the world. Climate communicators, journalists, meteorologists and national weather services, including those in the US, Spain and Australia, have reported an increase in harassment, threats and abuse for connecting extreme weather events to climate change.

Some climate stripes to stick it to those halfwit climate deniers.

There's an organization called 3.14 Action which is dedicated to electing more people with a science background to Congress and to public office in general.

3.14 Action | Electing scientists who will use evidence and facts to fight climate change and fix our broken healthcare system.

One of their successes in 2022 was helping meteorologist Eric Sorensen get elected to the US House from a swing district in Illinois.