Record female representation in the next US Congress.. What do the numbers reveal?

The next session of the US Congress is scheduled to witness unprecedented female representation, as the number of women who will hold seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate will exceed any previous number, following the wave of historic victories achieved by the Democrats in this year’s elections. According to data issued by the Center for Women and American Politics at Rutgers University, and the Ofoq News Network’s election forecasts, the number of women in the next Congress will reach 159 women from both parties, an increase of 7 women over the current number in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The new batch of elected members includes figures from diverse backgrounds, including the first Native American woman to reach the Senate, the first black woman to represent Colorado in the House of Representatives, and the first Latina representative from the state of Nebraska. Although these victories will raise the percentage of women’s representation to 30% when Congress begins next January, the number of seats held by women will still be about 100 seats less than the number needed to achieve equal representation between the sexes.

The gains also did not extend equally to both parties, as they were concentrated among Democratic women, most of them in the House of Representatives, which will see the previous record for the number of women broken. In return, the number of women in the Senate will decrease.

As for Republicans in both chambers, the new session will witness what one political strategist described as a “crisis-level decline” in the number of women belonging to the party. Outside of Congress, women have also achieved success at other levels of government, as 17 women will assume the position of state governor, which is a record number, with the results of a number of races still awaited.

Among them is Keisha Lance Bottoms, who won the position of governor of the state of Georgia, becoming the first black woman elected to this position in the history of the United States. “It's a generation-long shift,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILY's List, which was founded in 1985 to help Democratic women who support abortion rights win elections.

“It's not just about numbers, it's about introducing a new generation of leaders into the corridors of power in this country.” Ofoq News has not yet decided the results of all the election races, so the number of women winners could still change.

For example, the race for the Senate seat in Mississippi is still very close, as Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was the first woman elected to Congress from the state, faces a difficult challenge from Democrat Scott Cullum, who may become the first black senator to represent the state since the Reconstruction era. At the same time, it is still too early to decide the race for the Senate seat in Alaska, as Democratic candidate Mary Peltula seeks to oust Republican Senator Dan Sullivan.

Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn is expected to resign from her position after winning the position of governor of the state. Regardless of the results of the Hyde-Smith and Peltula races, the number of women in the Senate will decrease compared to its current levels.

As for the House of Representatives, women will set a new record with the arrival of no less than 136 women to the House. Although these gains are still far from achieving gender parity, they may influence public policies.

“When women get to these sites and participate in discussions about health care, they can ask questions like, ‘Maybe we should do some medical screening for women, too,’” said Kelly Dittmar, research director and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). She added: “Women are keen to make room for other diverse voices to participate in discussions, partly because they understand what it means to be excluded.”

With a broad base of female Democrats in the House of Representatives, the number of Democratic women will far exceed the current number of 95 members. In contrast, the number of Republican women in the Senate is declining, which is the same trend seen in the Senate.

The representation of women in Congress is clearly tilted in favor of the Democratic Party, a trend that has been further strengthened after the results of this year’s elections, as the number of Democratic women in the House of Representatives is expected to reach at least 115 women, compared to 19 Republican women. This partisan disparity is consistent with historical trends, as the Democratic Party has traditionally placed greater priority on recruiting female candidates and providing funding for their campaigns, particularly through EMILY’s List.

After President Donald Trump won the 2016 elections, the 2018 elections saw a wave of women running for public office, resulting in the election of 36 women who did not hold seats in the House of Representatives before the election. According to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), this broke the previous record set in 1992, when 24 women who did not hold seats in the House of Representatives before the election were elected, following the testimony of Anita Hill, who accused a judge of sexual harassment.

All but one of the women elected in 2018 belonged to the Democratic Party, which constituted a strong wake-up call for the Republican Party and contributed to the record success of Republican female candidates in the 2020 elections. In a statement issued after last week’s election results, Danielle Barrow, executive director of the Winning for Women Action Fund, which works to support the election of Republican women, said: “We are once again facing a decline in The numbers of Republican women in Congress have reached crisis levels.”

She added: "It is time for party leaders to deal with this issue as a permanent strategy, not a temporary response to a crisis. The electoral map for 2028 appears favorable, and the opportunity is real, but we must begin now to attract female candidates."

According to Michelle Sawyers, professor of Congress, Women and Politics at Georgetown University, there is a direct correlation between the broad victories achieved by Democrats and those achieved by women. “I'm not surprised,” Sawyers said. “When Democrats do well in elections, women do well, too.”

She added that as women gain more seniority and experience, they are better able to build networks of supporters and funders that allow them to help other female candidates. There is no doubt that this year was good for the Democratic Party, which succeeded in seizing seats from areas considered traditional Republican strongholds, taking advantage of the historic decline in Trump’s popularity, which partly explains the decline in the number of Republican women who won.

“We should not confuse popular rejection of the party’s direction and message at the national level with rejection of its female candidates,” Julie Conway, executive director of VIEW PAC, which works to elect Republican women, told Ofoq News via email. In this political climate, women were better positioned to connect with voters frustrated by rising prices, according to Mackler.

Democratic House member-elect Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, said her experience as a mother raising daughters helped her understand voters' concerns about the cost of living. Bennett is one of at least 11 women veterans who will serve in the 120th Congress, the largest number of women with military backgrounds in US history.

They also include newly elected Democrats Kate Conley and Joanna Mendoza, who won their races in New York and Arizona, respectively. Their victories bring to mind the success of women with national security experience who were elected to the House of Representatives in 2018, some of whom later reached higher positions, such as Senator Elissa Slotkin from Michigan, and the governors of Virginia and New Jersey, Abigail Spanberger and Mickey Sherrill.

Sawyers noted that female Democratic candidates who are veterans have succeeded in part because they challenge stereotypes that assume Democrats and women are weak on national security issues. “When you attract women with national security experience, you benefit from their credibility in this field, and from the moral authority that their image as women and caregivers reinforces,” she said.

Female candidates from the Republican Party also relied on their military experiences, as two of the 11 women who will hold seats in Congress next year belong to the Republican Party. Others focused on their experiences as mothers, such as Representative Ashley Hinson of Iowa, who lost her bid for a Senate seat in a state that tends to support Trump.

As the Republican Party seeks to build a base of female candidates in preparation for more favorable political conditions, Conway believes that attracting strong female candidates is only half the battle. She added that the decisive factor lies in providing early financial support, and preparing to run in competitive primaries with conservative female candidates and supporting them, so that they can reach the general elections.

“We owe these women, and the women who will come after them, more than just a post-election analysis of why they lost,” Conway said. “We owe them a serious commitment to making it happen.”