Story at a glance
- A record-breaking number of women were elected to Congress in 2018, driven primarily by Democrats.
- This year, Republicans are setting a new record for female lawmakers.
- Black, Indigenous and women of color are also setting records with their elections.
“Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it,” said Hillary Clinton in 2008, when she dropped out of the Democratic primary.
Women still haven’t broken the ceiling of gender inequality in government in any of the three branches of the federal government, but even as some races are still being decided, the cracks are showing.
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At least 131 women will serve in the 117th Congress, passing the previous record of 127, reported the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), 106 of whom will serve in the House — yet another record.
NEW RECORDS
At least 131 women will serve in the 117th Congress, passing the previous record of 127.
At least 106 women will serve in the House, beating the previous record of 102.#Elections2020 https://t.co/IUybQL1LCI pic.twitter.com/KcJEP9MFsK
— CAWP (@CAWP_RU) November 5, 2020
Women made up nearly a quarter of the 116th Congress, buoyed by the 2018 midterms. A record 102 women in the House of Representatives made up 38 percent of House Democrats and 4 percent of House Republicans, while 25 women in the Senate made up 36 percent of Senate Democrats and 15 percent of Senate Republicans.
In past analysis, Fivethirtyeight’s Meredith Conroy, an associate professor at California State University, “noted that tipping the gender balance in Congress was going to be slow if only one party was making an effort to recruit women to run in competitive or safe seats.”
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“But this cycle, at least one group — E-PAC, founded in 2018 by New York Rep. Elise Stefanik — sought to change that, and it is looking like it is paying off,” said Conroy.
Despite the historic surge, with at least 100 Democratic women in the 117th, Republicans are still catching up.
“Such Democratic dominance wasn’t always the case. Until the 1929 stock market crash, most of the dozen women elected to the House were Republicans, and for several decades afterward the two parties were generally close,” reported the Pew Research Center.
But the rise of women in politics remains relatively recent. Nearly two-thirds of women elected to the House have been elected since 1992, reported the Pew Research Center, while more than half of the women who have served in the Senate took office in 2000 or later.
With each election, however, women are getting closer to gender parity in Congress. This year, CAWP reported new records for women candidates in the House and Senate and all-women congressional contests — to name a few. At least 115 candidates for the House of Representatives were women of color, and as of Nov. 5 at least 47 women of color will serve in the 117th U.S. Congress, just one below the 2019 record of 48 women.
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