US’s year of the woman?

With record numbers of women running in elections, gender gap could boost Democrats

THE RECORD numbers of women running for office in the US this year are mostly Democrats, and their party is banking on their candidacies and a widening gender gap on key issues to achieve big wins in the November6 elections.

Reuters/Ipsos polling two weeks before election day showed Democrats with a five-percentage-point lead over Republicans among likely voters in the elections, where control of Congress is at stake.

Democrats held an eight-point lead with women and a two-point lead among men. But among probable voters with university educations, who vote at significantly higher rates, Democrats had a 23-point lead with women and an eight-point lead with men.

It is a “gender gap on steroids”, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said.

The Democratic Party is trying to regain political power at the local, state and federal levels in next month’s elections. The 2016 election of Republican President Donald Trump despite multiple sexual misconduct allegations and the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct have energised Democratic women in particular to seek office and vote.

“It may be women candidates who save our enthusiasm advantage by mobilising women voters,” Lake said. “Women candidates help get women voters out, and that is a very important thing for Democrats.”

Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to win control of the US House of Representatives and gain two seats to capture the Senate. Winning either chamber would help them thwart or stall much of Trump’s policy agenda and increase congressional oversight and investigation of the administration.

Of the 23 women on ballots for the 100-seat Senate and 237 vying for the 435-seat House, more than 75% are Democrats, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

“It’s a bit of a partisan story,” said Rutgers political science professor Kelly Dittmar. “This year we’ve seen a surge of women candidates who are both running for office and winning nominations, but much of that surge is happening among Democrats, and not Republican women.”

Women are more likely than men to vote in both presidential and congressional midterm elections across all ethnicities, according to Dittmar’s research and polling data.

Reuters/Ipsos polling showed Democrats, especially university-educated women Democrats, are much more enthusiastic about voting this year compared with the last midterm elections in 2014, and their level of enthusiasm has risen more than it has among men.

Polling has also shown a widening gender divide on questions such as approval of Trump and the economy.

In May, when asked if they approved or disapproved of the way Trump was handling his presidency, 47% of men and 43% of women approved. By mid-October, 46% of men approved, but just 36% of women.

Both men and women say the economy is their top issue. But while 51% of men believe the economy is on the right track, only 37% of women do, polling showed.

Lake said she hoped 2018 was a “breakthrough moment” for women, who hold just 20% of seats in Congress.

“We’ve had the ‘Year of the Woman’ before and it has been a onenight sensation, but this is about filling the pipeline,” she said. “There will be a record number of women who win; there will be a record number of women who lose. What’s important is that those women run again.”