Jacklyn Sheryl Rosen (née Spektor; born August 2, 1957) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Nevada since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the U.S. representative for Nevada's 3rd congressional district from 2017 to 2019.
Rosen was elected to the Senate in 2018, defeating Republican incumbent Dean Heller. She was the only House freshman to win a Senate seat in the 2018 midterm elections and the only challenger to defeat a Republican incumbent senator in 2018.


== Early life and career ==
Rosen was born on August 2, 1957, in Chicago, Illinois, to Carol, a homemaker, and Leonard Spektor, a car dealership owner who had served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Rosen's mother was of Irish, German, and Austrian descent, and her father's family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Austria.Rosen attended the University of Minnesota and graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1979. While she was in college, her parents moved to Las Vegas, where Rosen moved after graduating. She took a job with Summa Corporation and worked summers as a waitress at Caesars Palace throughout the 1980s. While working for Summa, she attended Clark County Community College (now the College of Southern Nevada) and received an associate degree in computing and information technology in 1985. She began working for Southwest Gas in 1990 before leaving to open her own consulting business three years later.


== U.S. House of Representatives ==


=== Elections ===


==== 2016 ====

A former computer programmer with no political experience at the time, Rosen was asked by then–U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, also from Nevada, to run in the 2016 election for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Republican Joe Heck. On January 26, she declared her candidacy for Nevada's 3rd congressional district. Rosen won 60% of the vote in the Democratic primary election and narrowly defeated Republican nominee Danny Tarkanian in the general election. She was sworn into office on January 3, 2017.


=== Committee assignments ===
Committee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Military Personnel
Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Subcommittee on Energy
Subcommittee on Research and Technology


=== Caucus memberships ===
Congressional Arts Caucus
Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues
Problem Solvers Caucus


== U.S. Senate ==


=== Elections ===


==== 2018 ====

Rosen was elected to the U.S. Senate on November 6, 2018, defeating one-term Republican senator Dean Heller to become the junior senator from Nevada. Her candidacy, announced on July 5, 2017, was endorsed by former President Barack Obama and former vice president Joe Biden. During the campaign, Rosen emphasized her support for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and criticized Heller's vote to repeal it in 2017. At the time, Rosen voted in the U.S. House against Republicans' attempts to repeal Obamacare.Rosen defeated Heller, 50.4%–45.4%. Heller carried 15 of Nevada's 17 county-level jurisdictions, but Rosen carried the state's two largest, Clark (home to Las Vegas) and Washoe (home to Reno). She won Clark County by over 92,000 votes, almost double her statewide margin of more than 48,900 votes.Rosen was one of only two non-incumbent Democrats, alongside Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, to win election to the Senate in 2018. She is also the 37th freshman member of the U.S. House to win a Senate seat and the first woman to do so.


=== Tenure ===
117th Congress (2021–present)Rosen was on Capitol Hill for the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol. At the time, she was in the Russell Senate Office Building before being evacuated to a secure, undisclosed location. She tweeted during the attack, calling the event "reprehensible" and writing, "It's time for us as a nation to come together and denounce hate and violence."


=== Committee assignments ===
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Subcommittee on Aviation and Space
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet
Subcommittee on Manufacturing, Trade and Consumer Protection
Subcommittee on Security
Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship
Special Committee on Aging


== Political positions ==
Rosen has been described as a liberal Democrat at times and as a moderate at others. As of April 2020, FiveThirtyEight found that Rosen's votes aligned with President Trump's legislative positions about 36% of the time. The American Conservative Union gave her a 5% lifetime c