Kay Hagan
| Kay Hagan | |
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United States Senator from North Carolina |
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In office January 3, 2009 – January 3, 2015 |
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| Preceded by | Elizabeth Dole |
| Succeeded by | Thom Tillis |
| Member of the North Carolina Senate from the 27th district |
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In office January 29, 2003 – January 3, 2009 |
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| Preceded by | John Garwood |
| Succeeded by | Don Vaughan |
| Member of the North Carolina Senate from the 32nd district |
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In office January 27, 1999 – January 29, 2003 |
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| Preceded by | John Blust |
| Succeeded by | Linda Garrou |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Janet Kay Ruthven May 26, 1953 Shelby, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Chip Hagan |
| Alma mater |
Florida State University, Tallahassee Wake Forest University |
Janet Kay Hagan (née Ruthven; born May 26, 1953) is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from North Carolina from 2009-15. Previously she served in the North Carolina Senate from 1999 to 2009. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
When Hagan defeated Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in the 2008 United States Senate election, she became the first woman to defeat an incumbent woman in a Senate election. She ran for re-election in 2014, losing to Republican Thom Tillis on November 4, 2014.
Hagan was born Janet Kay Ruthven in Shelby, North Carolina, the daughter of Jeanette (née Chiles), a homemaker (and sister of Lawton Chiles, future Governor of Florida), and Josie Perry "Joe" Ruthven, a tire salesman. Both Hagan's father and her brother served in the U.S. Navy. She spent most of her childhood in Lakeland, Florida.
Leaving the tire business, her father branched out into real estate development, primarily focused on industrial warehouses and warehouse-centered business parks in the Lakeland and Polk County, Florida area. With business success came political engagement, in this case with the Democratic Party, with her father later becoming mayor of Lakeland. To this day, the multigenerational Ruthven family remains one of the wealthiest and most politically influential families in Lakeland and Southwest Central Florida.
Hagan also spent summers on her grandparents' farm in Chesterfield, South Carolina, where she helped string tobacco and harvest watermelons. Her uncle is the late Lakeland native and U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.), who later became Florida Governor following his service in the U.S. Senate. In the 1970s, she was an intern at the Capitol, operating an elevator that carried senators, including her uncle, to and from the Chamber.
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