Record Number of Women Nominated for House Seats

There is hope yet for better female representation in US government this year.

As of the primaries on Tuesday, August 7th, women have secured 185 major party nominations to run for the House of Representatives come November. This milestone is a step up from the 167 women nominated in 2016, according to the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Three more women are candidates in House primaries that are still too close to call after Tuesday’s polls, while fourteen states have yet to hold their primaries (and Oklahoma will still hold a runoff), meaning that the total of female nominations will likely rise even higher above the previous record.

Basically: anti-establishment progressives are winning some places but not others. Nonwhite candidates are winning some places but not others. Young candidates are winning some places but not others.

Women are winning everywhere. https://t.co/CmjV2diZTp

— Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) August 8, 2018

The breakdown between parties is significant, though not unfounded. Of those 185 nominations thus far, 143 (more than three-quarters) are Democrats, while 42 are Republicans.

Democratic women routinely outnumber Republican women in congressional elections, and they also win more often. As supported by data from the Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman, in open Democratic House primaries wherein at least one man and one woman run, women have won at least 69% of the time in 2018, while only 34% of Republican women have won this year in like scenarios.

Overwhelmingly, the women running and the women nominated this year have been Democrats. Of the 185 women nominated for the House thus far, more than three-quarters are Democrats. https://t.co/2yq4jK6Vim

— NPR (@NPR) August 9, 2018

With this marked success, a recent study from Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas noted that Democratic women could soon surpass white men within their party should they maintain such victories this fall.