PHOENIX – Vice President Kamala Harris is on track to become only the second female major party presidential nominee. But beyond the vote, the number of women jumping into congressional races is down this year after breaking records in 2020 and 2022.
The trend follows a surge in female voter registration following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which returned abortion policy to the states in 2022. And despite the drop, the totals are still up higher than they were before 2018, when hundreds of women more than ever. candidate for the House of Representatives in the midterm elections during the administration of President Donald Trump.
But it’s still a notable decline: Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, the preeminent organization tracking the issue, counts 466 women as candidates of the major party in the House, from 583 female candidates in 2020 and 2022.
One of the first primaries on the docket, when congressional races begin to resume next week after a summer break, exemplifies the trend. In Arizona’s 1st Congressional District – one of only 22 House toss-up races in the entire country, for the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter – Democratic voters have half a dozen competing options on the primary ballot for a fall campaign against Rep. GOP David Schweikert. Only one candidate, Marlene Galán-Woods, is a woman.
“This is difficult, and it’s not for the faint of heart,” Galán-Woods said of why it could be that fewer women are running this year. “But I like to do the hard thing.”
Galán-Woods’ political experience is limited compared to her main challengers, with a career in broadcast journalism that sometimes draws comparisons to Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake. (Galán-Woods doesn’t like the parallel.) Other candidates include Andrei Cherny, a businessman and former chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party who has run for Congress before, and Amish Shah, a former member of the Arizona State House.
But the mother of five has won key endorsements, including from Democratic state Attorney General Kris Mayes, with Galán-Woods arguing that her experience as a reporter has equipped her with skills that make her a law enforcement officer. effective government.
“I’m a really good listener, and that’s missing, missing in government, missing in speech, missing in our society,” Galán-Woods said of the overlap between her skills as a journalist and the skills needed to be effective. representative
Kelly Dittmar, the research director at the Center for Women and American Politics, said the cause of this year’s decline is unclear. “We can’t say now why,” he said, pointing out that fewer men are also candidates for Congress in 2024.
One of the potential reasons that Dittmar considered as Galán-Woods: “If women look at these institutions, and in this case, Congress, and think that this is not the place where they can do things, they will not correct”.
There have been some notable changes since the Dobbs decision, now more than two years old. CAWP found a 5.7% increase in Democratic women running for the state House across the country, while there was a 6.5% decrease among Republican women.
“If they’re motivated by Dobbs and abortion, where they can have an impact,” said Dittmar, then “now, it looks like the states, based on this decision, will really be a primary site to legislate on this . problem.”
When the Arizona state Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that an almost total abortion ban from 1864 was enforceable, it was the state Legislature that passed the repeal of the ban, which was signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
But aside from policy considerations, things like “the toxicity, the unpopularity of Congress, can affect the willingness to run, like the perception that it’s a toxic place to work,” Dittmar said at a conference of press on July 23.
“The perceived toxicity extends to the harassment abuse officers face, and we know that that abuse is gendered and racialized and that can discourage women, and especially women of color, from running,” she said.
Galán-Woods said she dealt with “some things” while running as the lone woman in her race. But he struck a defiant tone.
“I have a job to do. I have girls and women to protect, and I have democracy to support, and that’s what I’m focused on,” she said.
