After this year’s historic blue wave, more women than ever are expected to serve in the next Congress.
The new record — 159 women of both parties — seven more women than currently serve in the House and Senate, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University and CNN election projections.
And next year’s freshmen are a diverse cohort, including the first female Native American senator, the first Black representative from Colorado and the first Hispanic representative from Nebraska.
But even though these victories will bring women’s representation to 30% when the 120th Congress convenes in January, they will still be about 100 seats short of reaching gender parity. And the gains are not generalized: they concern Democratic women and mainly in the House, where women set a new record. The number of women in the Senate will decrease.
And for Republicans in both chambers, the new Congress will bring what one strategist called a “crisis-level decline.”
Outside of Congress, women have also seen success at other levels of government: a record 17 women will serve as governor, with several elections still to come. Among them, Keisha Lance Bottoms of Georgia is the first black woman ever elected governor.
“It’s a seismic, generational shift,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILY’s List, created in 1985 to help elect Democratic women who support abortion rights. “It’s not just about volume; it’s about… injecting a new generation of leaders into the corridors of power of this country. »
CNN has not yet projected the winners of all the races, so it is possible that the number of women could change. The Mississippi Senate race, for example, is too close to call. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith — who was the first woman elected to Congress in the Magnolia State — faced a stiff challenge from Democrat Scott Colom, who could become the state’s first Black senator since the Reconstruction era. And it’s still too early to call a Senate race in Alaska — where Democrat Mary Peltola is trying to unseat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is expected to resign after winning her state’s governorship.
Regardless of the election results for Hyde-Smith and Peltola, the number of women senators will decline from current levels. In the House, women will set a new record with at least 136.
But this progress, even if it falls far short of achieving gender parity, could have a political impact.
“Women come in and are in the room when conversations are happening about health care, and they say, ‘Hey, maybe we should do testing on women,'” said Kelly Dittmar, research director and researcher at CAWP.
“(Women) prioritized elevating other diverse voices, in part because they knew what it was like to be excluded,” she added.
In the House, the number of Democratic women will far exceed the 95 currently in office. But the number of Republican women in the House is declining, as it is in the Senate.
Women’s representation in Congress is lopsided in favor of Democrats, even more so after this year’s election results, as at least 115 Democrats are headed to the House, compared to 19 Republicans.
The partisan disparity is consistent with historical trends, as the Democratic Party has often placed a greater priority on recruiting and funding female candidates, largely through EMILY’s List.
After President Donald Trump’s victory in 2016, a wave of female candidates ran for office in 2018, leading to 36 non-incumbent women being elected to the House — and breaking the record of 24 non-incumbent women elected in 1992 following Anita Hill’s testimony, according to CAWP.
All but one of the women elected in 2018 were Democrats, which became a serious wake-up call for the GOP that resulted in record success for GOP women in 2020.
“We are once again facing a critical decline in the number of Republican women in Congress,” Danielle Barrow, executive director of the Winning for Women Action Fund, which works to elect Republican women, said in a statement after last week’s election results.
“It is time for party leaders to treat this as a permanent strategy and not a response to the crisis. The map in 2028 is favorable and the opportunity is real, but recruitment must start today,” she added.
There is a direct relationship between the stunning victories of women and Democrats, according to Michele Swers, professor of Congress, women and politics at Georgetown University.
“I’m not surprised, because when Democrats historically have a good year, women have a good year,” Swers said, noting that as women gain seniority, they are more likely to have the financial networks to encourage others.
It was undeniably a good year for Democrats, who flipped seats in deep red territory by capitalizing on Trump’s historic unpopularity — which partly explains the decline of Republican women.
“We should not confuse a national rejection of the party’s direction and message with a rejection of its candidates,” Julie Conway, executive director of VIEW PAC, which works to elect Republican women, said in an email to CNN.
And in this political environment, women are uniquely positioned to voice voters’ frustration with rising prices, Mackler said.
Democratic Rep.-elect Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot who flipped New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, said her experience as a mother raising her daughters helped her understand voters’ concerns about the cost of living.
Bennett is one of 11 women veterans who will serve in the 120th Congress, the most in U.S. history, including newly elected Democrats Cait Conley and JoAnna Mendoza, who won their elections in New York and Arizona, respectively. Their victories are reminiscent of those of women national security officials elected to the House in 2018, some of whom rose to higher office, such as Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and governors. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey.
Swers said veteran Democratic candidates have found success in part because they challenge assumptions that Democrats and women are soft on national security.
“If you can recruit women who have national security experience, you benefit from their moral authority in national security and their moral authority as women and caregivers in the public mind,” she said.
Republican women have also leaned on their experience as veterans — two of the 11 female veterans who will serve next year are Republicans — or leaned on their experience as moms, like Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa, who lost her Senate bid in a Trump state.
But as the party seeks to build its seats for a more favorable political environment, recruiting good candidates, Conway said, is only half the battle. The key, she added, is early financial support and a willingness to engage conservative female candidates in competitive primaries so they can make it to the general election.
“We owe these women, and those who follow them, more than a post-election post-mortem. We owe them a serious commitment to doing the work,” Conway said.
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