Women break political ground
They’re smashing records as donors, candidates
WASHINGTON – The number of women donating to political campaigns is climbing to new heights before this year’s midterm elections as women swarm to politics and run in record numbers for Congress and other elected posts around the country.
Women account for 31% of the money going to House candidates, their highest share of the donor pool in any election cycle, according to a tally by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in federal races. By comparison, women gave 27% of the money that went to House contenders for the previous midterm elections in 2014.
“These are record numbers, and it’s consistent with the sense that there’s rising momentum for women on a number of fronts in this election cycle,” said Sheila Krumholz, who runs the center.
Nowhere is that more evident than in House races, where a record 391 female candidates, most of them Democrats, compete. That tops a high of 298 female House candidates reached in 2012, according to data compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
At the state level, 43 women have filed as candidates in governors’ races, breaking a record set in 1994 when 34 women ran, according to Rutgers’ tally.
The 2016 presidential election was a wake-up call for many Democratic women, who were disappointed that Hillary Clinton failed in her quest to become the nation’s first female president and dismayed that Republican
Donald Trump, a political novice, captured the White House, said Julie McClain Downey of EMILY’s List, which works to elect Democratic female candidates who favor abortion rights.
“There was a one-two punch: We came so close, she lost to that guy?” Downey said. She said a growing number of female activists say, “If that guy can be our president, I can definitely run for the school board.”
More than 36,000 women have reached out to EMILY’s List about running for office since the election. By comparison, the organization fielded 920 similar requests during the twoyear 2016 election cycle, Downey said.
Among the candidates endorsed by EMILY’s List this year: Liz Watson, a first-time candidate who captured the Democratic nomination Tuesday night in a southern Indiana congressional district that includes Bloomington. She’ll face first-term GOP Rep. Trey Hollingsworth in November.
Watson, who worked on labor policy as a congressional staffer in Washington, has the backing of more than two dozen labor groups. She had a breakthrough with female donors, drawing on women for more than 62% of the money she raised last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. (By comparison, 52% of the money donated to Clinton came from women.)
Those female supporters do more than donate, Watson told USA TODAY before the primary. “A lot of people don’t have that much to give, but they also door-knock or they bake cookies” for campaign events, she said.
Laura Collins, a digital communication specialist, donated $100 to Watson’s campaign and plans to give more. The 40-year-old volunteered about 20 hours a week on the campaign last year, helping build its website and social media presence in between working, raising her 4-year-old daughter and starting a chapter of the National Organization for Women.
She said Trump’s election left her filled with anxiety about women’s rights and worried that the Supreme Court decision in 1973 le- galizing abortion, could be upended by Trump-appointed justices.
“I felt like the foundation I thought I was standing on was crumbling,” Collins said. “I thought that by voting in every election, I was doing enough, but this slapped me in the face. It wasn’t enough.”
The number of Democratic women running surged ahead of Republicans. Rutgers’ tally shows 291 Democratic women running for the House this year, a nearly 97% increase from 148 female Democratic candidates in 2016. One hundred Republican women are running for the House, up from 79 two years ago.
Winning for Women, an organization founded this year as a conservative counterweight to EMILY’s List, aims to change that. Officials with the group, which operates a political action committee and a non-profit arm that does not disclose its donors, won’t discuss fundraising totals but said 94% of its donors are women.
It has backed a slate of more than two dozen candidates in the midterms, including Debbie Lesko, the Republican who won last month’s special election in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, and Carol Miller, a West Virginia state delegate who beat a crowded field Tuesday night to win the Republican nomination for a House seat.
“Getting more women to run in the numbers we’d like to see isn’t going to happen overnight,” said Andrea Bozek, a Republican communication strategist and a spokeswoman for the group. She said the organization is determined to create an infrastructure among Republicans “to build lasting momentum for these women candidates.”
For all the gains among women, men still dominate politics. About 1,300 men are running for the House, more than three times the number of female officeseekers. “Women have increased their proportion” of candidates running for the House, “but more men are running, too,” said Kelly Dittmar at the Center for American Women and Politics.
Men give far more money than female political contributors.
The top 10 political donors of the 2018 campaign have contributed a combined $74.9 million to super PACs. All of them are men, led by Republican shipping executive Richard Uihlein and Democratic former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer.
“There still are more Tom Steyers than Tammy Steyers,” Krumholz said.