PHOENIX – Vice President Kamala Harris is on track to become the second female presidential nominee from a major party. But further down the ballot, the number of women running for congressional races has declined this year after reaching record highs in 2020 and 2022.
The trend follows the surge in female voter registration following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which returned abortion policies to the states. And despite the drop, the totals are still higher than before 2018, when hundreds more women ran than before. In the midterm elections for the House of Representatives during the administration of former President Donald Trump.
But it’s still a notable drop: Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics, an influential organization that tracks the topic, 466 are women In both 2020 and 2022, women are running as major party candidates for the House of Representatives, down from 583 candidates.
One of the first primaries when congressional races resume next week after their summer recess is an example of this trend. In Arizona’s 1st Congressional District—one of only 22 shootout house races in the entire country— Cook Political Report with Amy Walter — Democratic voters will have a half-dozen options competing on the primary ballot for the fall campaign against GOP Rep. David Schweikert. Only one candidate, Marlene Galan-Woods, is a woman.
“It’s hard work and it’s not for the faint of heart,” Galan-Woods explained of why fewer women competed this year. “But I like to do the hard part.”
Galan-Woods’ political experience is limited compared to her primary rivals, with a career in broadcast journalism that has sometimes drawn comparisons to Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake. (Galan-Woods doesn’t like the parallel.) Other candidates include Andrey Cherney, a businessman and former chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party who previously ran for Congress, and Amish Shah, a former Arizona member.
But Galan-Woods has garnered key endorsements, including from Democratic state Attorney General Chris Mayes, a mother of five who says her experience as a journalist equips her with the skills to make her an effective government official.
“I’m a really good listener, and that’s missing, it’s missing in government, it’s missing in the discourse, in our society,” said Galan-Woods, of the overlap between her skills as a journalist and the skills needed to be effective. representative.
Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics, said the reason for this year’s decline is unclear. “We can’t say why right now,” he said, noting that fewer men are running for Congress in 2024.
One of the potential reasons Dittmar thinks is reflected in Galan-Woods: “If women look at these institutions, and in this case Congress, and they don’t think there’s a place where they can get the job done, they’re not going to run.”
Now more than two years after the Dobbs decision, there have been some notable changes. CAWP found Nationally, there was a 5.7% increase in the number of Democratic women running for state House, and a 6.5% decrease among Republican women.
“If they’re motivated by Dobbs and abortion, that’s where they can have an impact,” Dittmar said, “right now, it looks like the states are really going to be the prime site for legislation on this issue, based on this decision.”
When the Arizona Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that an abortion ban dating back to 1864 was enforceable, it state legislature the cancellation of the ban was passed Signed by Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs.
Dittmar said at a press conference on July 23 that in addition to policy considerations, “things like toxicity, the unpopularity of Congress, as well as perceptions that this is a toxic place to work, can affect the willingness to run.”
“The perceived toxicity extends to the harassment abuse officers face, and we know that this abuse is gendered and racialized and can deter women, especially women of color,” she said.
Galan-Woods said she was dealing with “certain things” while running as a single woman in her race. But he struck a defiant tone.
“I have a job. I have girls and women to protect, democracy to defend and that’s what I’m focusing on,” he said.