WASHINGTON — Republicans are struggling to recruit and elect women to Congress, lagging behind Democrats in giving women, who make up half the population, a mighty voice in the halls of power, experts on women in politics said Tuesday.
“This year’s data clearly shows that Republican women are lagging behind in terms of candidacies, nominations and even success in primary contests,” Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said on a call with reporters.
Democratic women, on the other hand, “are not only outperforming their male counterparts, but they are also closing in on Democratic men in terms of nominations and tenure.”
There are currently 126 women in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives, 34 of whom are Republicans. There are 25 parliamentarians in the 100-person Senate, including nine from the GOP.
CAWP Chief Data Officer Chelsea Hill explained in a telephone interview that while women make up just 31.1% of House candidates overall in the general election, the breakdown shows a stark difference between Democratic and Republican politicians.
“Women continue to be significantly underrepresented as a percentage of all candidates and nominees in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate,” Hill said. “But Republican women make up a much smaller percentage of their party’s candidates and nominees than Democratic women.”
Democrat women running for the House of Representatives constitute 45.9% of candidates in their party, which means that in 2022 they are approaching the level of their male and female colleagues, and the percentage of female candidates is growing, she added.
Hill said, however, that Republican women make up 16.2% of GOP House candidates this election cycle, which is a lower percentage than in 2020 and 2022.
In the Senate, female candidates make up 30.9% of the general election candidates, with a similar split between Democrats and Republicans.
Democratic women make up 46.9% of the party’s candidates for this House of Congress, also close to parity, although women make up 17.6% of Republican Senate candidates, “a smaller percentage than in the previous three cycles,” Hill said.
Why are fewer Republican women running?
CAWP experts said the difference in the number of women candidates is mainly due to structural differences, as well as different beliefs about the importance of women in office among leaders and voters.
CAWP research director Kelly Dittmar said that unless the party’s leadership recognizes that the underrepresentation of women in government is a problem that needs to be addressed, “it will be hard to build this kind of support infrastructure – whether it’s women’s PACs, training, recruitment programs – which would ensure that these numbers remain high.”
Dittmar said one example was the decision by House GOP leaders to launch a program called “Project Grow” to recruit GOP lawmakers for the “Young Guns” program, which focuses more on general recruiting.
“Young Guns” is also the title of a book published in 2010 by former House Republican leaders Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, all of whom are men.
Dittmar said the evolution of the Republican Party under former President Donald Trump and the change in abortion access resulting from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 are not significant factors behind the lower number of female candidates. Republican Party.
“I suggest that once we get to the candidate level, there will be a sufficient number of conservative Republican women in the country who can be recruited and supported as candidates,” Dittmar said.
Walsh said one reason GOP leaders are not focusing on recruiting and encouraging women to serve in public office is the Republican Party’s “reluctance” to engage in identity politics.
“The Democratic Party places a premium on this, unlike the Republican Party, which says the best candidate will come to the top and let the best person win,” Walsh said. “So this is a deeply philosophical difference that takes place in candidate recruitment and candidate support.”
Dittmar added that Democrats don’t necessarily recruit and promote female candidates “out of the goodness of their hearts,” but do so because that’s what their voters expect.
“There is an electoral incentive, in part because of the gender gap in voting, and also the racial and ethnic differences in terms of the Democratic base, where there is a greater demand for the Democratic Party to say, ‘Look, we’re getting you votes, you need to prioritize and value that level “representation”.
