Biography

Blanche Lambert Lincoln (born Blanche Meyers Lambert; September 30, 1960) is an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Arkansas from 1999 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, she was first elected to the Senate in 1998; she was the first woman elected to the Senate from Arkansas since Hattie Caraway in 1932 and youngest woman ever elected to the Senate at age 38. She previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Arkansas's 1st congressional district from 1993 to 1997. Lincoln was the first woman and the first Arkansan to serve as chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. She also served as the Chair of Rural Outreach for the Senate Democratic Caucus. In 2010, she ran for a third term, but was defeated in a landslide by Republican John Boozman, whose brother, Fay Boozman, she had defeated in 1998. She is the founder and a principal of Lincoln Policy Group, a consulting firm.