American elections: Republican women win electoral victories

Republican women will meet in 2019 at a Women for Trump event in Pennsylvania.

Chris Szagola / Imago

Democrats are celebrating their first vice president these days, but Republicans have reason to be happy too: One of the big surprises on Election Night was the number of conservative women now entering Congress.

The counts for the congressional elections are not yet complete, 20 races with candidates are still open. But it is already clear that at least 13 Republicans will enter the House of Representatives, more than ever. This means that in the future there will be at least as many Republicans in the House of Representatives as there were last time in 2006 (that is, 25); A new record will likely be set with more than 30 Conservative MPs.

This is notable because the Grand Old Party is known to be the white men’s party. In the current Congress, conservative women represent less than 10 percent of a total of 250 Republican deputies and senators. Furthermore, almost no senior office on Capitol Hill is held by a Republican. The only exception is Elizabeth Cheney: the eldest daughter of the former vice president is a Republican number three in the House of Representatives.

Specific Republican Efforts

After Democrats celebrated their “Year of the Woman” in the 2018 Congressional elections, Republicans had a moment to pause. Not only did they lose a majority in the House of Representatives that year, but also 10 of the 23 women MPs as a result.

Republican leaders such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy then deliberately backed the female candidates early in the primaries. These are not chosen because they are women, McCarthy told the “New York Times.” They are “natural leaders” who simply would not have had a chance to prove themselves beforehand.

Elise Stefanik.

Republican National Convention

“Yesterday was Republican Women’s Night,” said New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik the day after the election. That was also thanks to her: Stefanik had founded a pressure group with the explicit goal of getting more conservative women to political office this year. “I was very frank about what we had to do better. It was a fundamental change. “

Successfully: A total of more than 200 conservative women ran for the House of Representatives this year, more than ever. More than half then failed in the party’s internal primaries, but those who prevailed were hugely successful on Election Day. It was mainly thanks to these candidates that the Great Old Party was able to wrest a surprising number of seats in the House of Representatives from the Democrats. “We have shown everyone who does not say that strong Republican women are the best candidates to nominate,” Stefanik told the Politico news portal.

The first native Republican woman in Congress

In fact, Republicans won some of the toughest races in the country – in South Florida, for example, which is traditionally Democratic territory. In a district south of Miami, Cuban-born Republican María Elvira Salazar triumphed against prominent Democrat Donna Shalala, who was once Health Minister during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

There was also a surprise in Minnesota: In the congressional district in the east, Democrat Collin Peterson lost after 30 years in the House of Representatives to Republican Michelle Fischbach, who was previously Lieutenant Governor of the state.

In New Mexico, Republican Yvette Herrell is the first Native American to enter Congress for Republicans.

In the Senate, where the majority of Republicans are unstable, several Republicans have held important seats, including Susan Collins in Maine and Joni Ernst in Iowa. Two races remain open in Georgia that are decisive for the majority, one of these seats is also defended by a woman.

Democrats are the most feminine party

The Great Old Party is becoming more feminine, without question, and yet it is still significantly more masculine than the Democratic Party. There are about twice as many Democrats in the Senate as there are Republicans, in the House of Representatives there are almost three times as many, depending on the outcome of the remaining races. Overall, about 40 percent of Democrats on Capitol Hill are women. This is also explained by the fact that Democrats have been promoting female candidates for a long time. As the publication “Bloomberg Businessweek” reports, the lobbying organization Emily’s List, for example, raised 75 times more money this election year than Stefanik’s lobbyist. Emily’s List supports Democratic candidates who defend abortion rights.

The development is also interesting because Republicans explicitly don’t want to be a part of identity issues like Democrats do, and they don’t traditionally address gender. That could change this year. “The Republican Party has prioritized the problem,” said Olivia Pérez-Cubas, a spokeswoman for the WFW Action Fund, which also invested millions of dollars in campaigns on behalf of Republican women.

A lot has happened to Republicans this year, said Kelly Dittmar, a researcher at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in Virginia. The female candidates received specific support. But this Republican infrastructure for women is still “incredibly small” compared to the Democrats’ apparatus. More female candidates could pay off for the Republican Party – not only are women the largest group of voters and vote more reliably than men, women are also more likely to support female candidates, Dittmar says. If women were equally represented in Congress, progress would have to come from both parties.

However, the surprising victories among Republicans do not mean that women are now occupying leadership positions in the party: Minority leader McCarthy, for example, set the stage for his re-election on Wednesday. Stefanik MEP, who had made a significant contribution to the victories with her lobbyist, said in an interview that she is currently not interested in assuming a leadership position.

Many emotions and finally clarity: the American elections in pictures