VEST Her Podcast
A podcast exploring the invisible barriers holding women back in the workplace and sharing stories of women navigating careers and building power collectively.
VEST Her Podcast
Women in Politics and the Path to Sustained Representation
In this episode VEST Member Terra-Branson Thomas, Senior Policy Advisor at Clause Law and former Secretary of the Nation for the Muscogee Creek Nation talks about the Status of Women in Politics with Kelly Dittmar, Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Director of Research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Eagleton Institute of Politics. Kelly is a published author in the field of Gender and Politics. She is also an influential expert in the field, contributing to publications like Forbes Women and serving as a commentator for various media outlets.
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About our Guest(s)
Kelly Dittmar is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University–Camden and Director of Research at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is a published author in the field, co-authoring "A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Representation Matters" (Oxford University Press, 2018) and authoring "Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns" (Temple University Press, 2015). Her work primarily revolves around gender and American political institutions. Dittmar also serves as a co-editor of Politics & Gender, an influential journal in the field. With a background as an American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellow and experience working for Governor Jennifer Granholm (MI), Dittmar is recognized as an expert in her field, contributing to publications like Forbes Women and serving as a commentator for various media outlets. She holds a B.A. from Aquinas College and earned her Ph.D. from Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Terra Branson-Thomas, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, has over a decade of experience in federal Indian policy, government relations, and self-governance. At Clause Law, she leverages her expertise from her tenure as Secretary of the Nation for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, where she increased federal funding by $18 million, boosted grant funding by 40%, and provided strategic economic advice. Her career includes roles in national tribal non-profit management, federal negotiations, and legislative development, with prior experience at the National Congress of American Indians. Terra holds a BA in Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and an MPP from Georgetown University.
This episode is brought to you by VEST Her Ventures, a peer network of women professionals and investment fund for women-led companies building the future of work and care infrastructure needed to unlock women's labor participation, career potential and lifetime earnings. Learn more at www.VESTHer.co
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Hey everyone, this is Erica Lucas, your host and founding member of Vest, an organization connecting women across industries, regions and career levels so that together we can expedite the pipeline of more women in positions of power and influence. Welcome to another episode of the Vestor podcast, where we explore the invisible barriers holding women back in the workplace and share stories of women building power collectively.
Speaker 2:For women in politics specifically, I'm worried we're not keeping our eye as well as our efforts and investment on the ball when it comes to recruitment and support for women candidates. Often what happens is you have a great year for women, so in 2018, it was a great year for Democrats. In 2020, it was a pretty darn good year for Republican women, relatively speaking. And I think then folks party leaders, donors, et cetera go like OK, we did it In the project that we did, this Rethinking Power project, when we were talking to a lot of women officeholders and even those working in these fields. When they get into office especially younger and more progressive women or, on the Republican side, arguably more moderate women their base is not sticking with them once they're in, and so the ability to stay is a real problem. They go into an institution where they can't make the kind of quick change that their constituencies want, and then they're called traitors or sellouts or whatever, and I think that's a real problem because we're going to lose women.
Speaker 2:You can't just elect a woman and then be like great she's in, like folks have to be supportive when the party leadership pushes against them, when other voters come out to attack them. Sticking with those women is not only voting. It's like getting other people in that, explaining to other people why they're doing what they're doing. We can give money. Some of us don't love that. That's the way the political system works. But money matters. It's not only because it matters for the campaign, it's also an indicator of support. So we have power to do those things whatever is most comfortable for you. But like there are ways to get involved that go beyond the vote, like there are ways to get involved that go beyond the vote.
Speaker 1:In this episode, vest member Tara Branson-Thomas, senior policy advisor at Kloss Law and former secretary of the nation for the Muskogee Creek Nation, talks to Kelly Dudmart, associate professor of political science at Rutgers University and director of research at the Center for American Women in Politics at Eagleton Institute of Politics. Kelly is a published author in the field of gender and politics and she's also an influential expert in the field, contributing to publications like Forbes Women and serving as commentator for various media outlets. For our guests' full bios and show notes, go to wwwbestherco. Forward slash podcast. If you enjoy the episode, share with a friend and don't forget to leave us a review. This episode is brought to you by Vest Her Ventures, a peer network of professional women and investment fund for women led companies in the care economy and future of work. To learn more, go to wwwvestherco. This episode was part of a more intimate coaching session with Vest members and has been repurposed to accommodate this episode.
Speaker 3:I think I'll just start off and ask you kind of what you're excited about in this season. I know it's a presidential year, but just wondering what you're excited about and then what you're worried about, I think we all have some concerns. But just wondering what you're excited about and then what you're worried about, I think we all have some concerns. There's a lot of initiatives out in the world and everyone's thinking about those as they go to the ballot box. So it'd be great to hear from you and get your perspective. Great.
Speaker 2:Thanks, tara, thanks for doing this, thank you, erica and the team for organizing it and having me back so I didn't mess up too bad last time, and I also am just really grateful for the work that BEST is doing. I mean, this is part of I'm going to talk about, I'm sure throughout the conversation, the most recent project we did at the Center for American Women in Politics, which is called Rethinking Women's Political Power. Erica spoke to me, former Senator Griffin spoke to us for that and really that project was looking at how we need to build political power, not just in officeholders but in all of these spaces, and that I know is so important to the work that you all are doing and will lead to that increase of power. So thank you and let me talk. So I don't think you want to know all my worries because they are too numerous, but I'm going to just talk to a few things about excited, a few things about worried, and keep the conversation going, but happy to elaborate on anything. In terms of what I'm excited about, in terms of the election, this is both excited and worried that the stakes are really high, right, and so when the stakes are really high, women already play a major role in determining outcomes in elections, but it will matter even more right, and so the stakes for women, the role that women can have in this election, is huge.
Speaker 2:As you probably already know, women outnumber and outvote men. They've been doing so for over 40 years. Women, of course, are not monolithic in their voting or in their policy priorities or positions, but they are more likely across the board to at least consider and raise issues around gender equality, even if they have very different positions on how to resolve them. They are also more likely, or we've seen, at least recently, that women are more likely to be mobilized by particular threats on issues around gender or gender equality, like those felt after the 2016 election and again with the fall of Roe versus Wade, as well as issues like gun violence and environmental degradation all things, unfortunately, that we are really dealing with in an acute way. So when we talk about the role of women in this election, there is also an urgency that I think we're seeing among a lot of women about their participation.
Speaker 2:And the last thing in terms of exciting and related to that, I would say, young women, especially young women of color, have been at the forefront, especially in recent years. I have a colleague named Melissa Deckman who's doing some really important work here on Gen Z and mobilization and advocacy and really pointing to the gender difference where young women and again at that intersection of race and gender are highly mobilized. Now the important part is getting them to vote, because there's mobilization in these other spaces but there's also a disillusionment with formal institutions. But I think there's so much potential there and again I hope that leads to my worry. I'm worried that not enough young people, including those most engaged, will choose to vote, disillusioned by the major party presidential nominees, what's being offered. But again, I don't think that's a lack of interest or engagement, in fact in some cases the opposite. I don't think that's a lack of interest or engagement. In fact in some cases the opposite. Right is that we're highly engaged and see these other opportunities for influence which are also important. Again, not only an issue with young people, also true across parties and gender folks who are just turned off by the negativity and toxicity of politics that they see. For women in politics specifically, I'm worried we're not keeping our eye, as well as our efforts and investment, on the ball when it comes to recruitment and support for women candidates.
Speaker 2:I think often what happens is you have a great year for women. So in 2018, it was a great year for Democrats. In 2020, it was a great year for Democrats. In 2020, it was a pretty darn good year for Republican women, relatively speaking. And I think then folks party leaders, donors, et cetera go like, okay, we did it. And so I think we're seeing that. So this year already and I can talk more about the numbers we're not seeing record levels of women running writ large, we're not seeing record levels of nominations and probably won't see huge gains for women across the board. So I will stop there. But those are some of the worries, but also the prospects for potential, you know, influence and success.
Speaker 3:That's a really great point, I think, as I was reflecting on the Oklahoma primaries and I live in a rural county in Oklahoma and there just weren't a lot of female options, whether you know, no matter what your party was, there wasn't a lot of folks on the ballot to really consider. And so it's interesting, you know, when you talk about we might be in a lull right where there's support kind of broadly from political parties. Can you talk a little bit about your research year over year and tell us about the trend maybe going into 2024? And if you make any predictions I know not everyone does predictions, but if you're thinking you know abroad if there are anything we should expect to see or where we still have an opportunity to influence the outcome.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I'll talk about the numbers first. So, for those who might not be familiar, the Center for American Women in Politics one of the things we kind of pride ourselves in and are known for keeping track of data of women officeholders as well as women candidates. So our website, which I'll share the link before we get off, you know, has access to this and data sets that you can look at over time to get to these trends and also just to know where things stand. So I'll give you the short overview. So right now, women are 28.2% of members of Congress, 31.9% of statewide elected executives governors, attorneys general, et cetera executives, governors, attorneys general, et cetera 32.9% just less than a third of state legislators nationwide. And then 34% of mayors of the top 100 largest cities about 25.8% when you expand it to cities over 30,000 in terms of mayors For Congress, statewide and state legislative levels. Those are all record highs. So this is one of those moments where you go like we're at records, but we're far below 50%. Obviously, those trends have been up. The biggest jumps, again, as I mentioned, were after 2018 for Democratic women and after 2020 for Republican women, pretty consistently across levels in terms of those trends, and then in 2022, we had a relatively stace this year. Again some increases, but not significant, and I would expect we're going to see that again this year. You know, for those interested, obviously state by state, happy to talk a little bit more about Oklahoma or Texas. I mean, I think in Oklahoma, just to say you know, still 45th in the nation in terms of women's representation in the state legislature. One of seven in the congressional delegation. Doesn't look like that's going to change per the elections yesterday. And then about 27 percent of the statewide offices, and then about 27 percent of the statewide offices. One trend that is different in Oklahoma than in Texas and or any state.
Speaker 2:Many states across the country is that the representation of women is dominated, is dominantly Republican. Across the country, the trend is that Democrats far outnumber Republicans among women officeholders. Took a lot of reasons why that is. Certainly some of those are active efforts by those within the party structure, whether it be electorally incentivized, which I think is a big part of it in the Democratic side of the aisle, or values based efforts to to try to increase women's representation. But when we think about that and even in the case I'm going to use Oklahoma as an example I just think it's a good, a good case. We also have to be cognizant of the trends in terms of women as a percentage of their party and in that case, even in Oklahoma, women are 11 percent of their party's office holders in the state legislative level. On the Republican side, they are 53 percent of Democratic office holders. So we have to look at the data in ways to kind of think about power and influence within partisan caucuses, especially in supermajority states. So again, that is true.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, in terms of Republican women's power and influence and representation, that's pretty true across the country, we see very few states where Republican women have a high percentage of representation. We've also seen growth in the racial and ethnic diversity of women office holders, again, especially since 2018. You can find all those breakdowns on our website. We have a page specifically dedicated to looking at women by race and ethnicity, but there's a lot of work to do there. So again, I'll just hit a few points. So in the US House, we saw an increase in that level of racial and ethnic diversity, but we still just have one Black woman, one Latina and two Asian women that serve among 25 women in the Senate.
Speaker 2:When we look at statewide offices, that's where the starkest racial and ethnic disparities are for women. Just four Asian American women, 11 Black and eight Latina. Just four Asian American women, 11 black and eight Latina, zero MENA, one native woman across the whole country serving statewide elective executive offices. That's about 23 of 99 women serving. And then again, I'm going to use Oklahoma as an example, just because what we have on our website is you can compare the percentage of women in the population by race and ethnicity and gender to where it stands in the state. So you look at Oklahoma. Native women are about 7.2% of the population, 2% of state legislators. Latinas are 5.8% of the population, 1.3% of members. Black women are 4.8%. Right, we could go down the list and it's 1% or 0.7%. So those disparities in representation at those intersections do persist and I think that's something to pay closer attention to. I'm going to pause there because I have more to say about 24, but I want to give you the chance, tara, to stop me from talking too much.
Speaker 3:No, I definitely appreciate the commentary about our representation, you know, in the general population versus maybe in the areas where decisions are being made about us, and I wanted to talk a little bit or ask you about how that might be impacting our experience with politics, whether that be, you know, from the outside just being engaged or finding someone who might share a narrative with us, right, and then if that creates a barrier to entry for folks who might be interested in the long-term, maybe running for office or serving in some kind of public, if you have done any research or have any notes around how those impact, you know where we get started basically.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think this gets to. You know, we use throw around a phrase, and I'm sure in this crew, to like representation matters, but we don't always explain like why and how. And I think when we don't explain we leave it open to the type of attacks Erica you alluded to at the start of this conversation, the kind of anti-DEI, the anti-DEI and the anti-representation kind of like attacks are. You're just checking a box right, like it's just you're just doing this because you think X number of you know women need to be in these positions but we are choosing on merit and so the undermining, I think, of efforts to increase representation along axes of demographic identities like gender, like race, like sexual orientation, can be dismissed if we don't fully explain what we mean by why representation matters matters. And I think for me you mentioned one of them, right. So representation matters.
Speaker 2:I would argue for simple fairness, supposed to be a representative democracy and it's not. Yeah, I will say people aren't sold by that argument, but like we should use it, it's absolutely true. But then there are symbolic and substantive reasons why it matters. Symbolically it matters, and I would say it's both symbolic and substantively for the reason you mentioned Tara. We know from research that if you see an institution in which your group, whatever that may be again, it may be various intersections of race and ethnicity, of age and gender if you don't see people like you in that position, you are less likely to consider that you can do it or you want to do it, because it's not always like I don't think I could do it. It's like I don't want to go into a toxic institution where nobody's going to be welcoming to me. When we interviewed now minority leader Munson right, she's now current the minority leader when we interviewed her for this project, she talked about how lonely it can be woman in this legislature and the lack of understanding among her peers and in fact, even the aggression to say things like oh, you keep talking about race and ethnicity, right, and really pushing back against any opportunity to use that unique voice and perspective. So we know that those things do matter for influencing whether or not people make decisions strong. On the flip side, it's also inspirational, right. So there can be a mixed effect because you look at that and you look at somebody like the minority leader and say like, well, maybe I too can do that, even though the numbers are small.
Speaker 2:Then, when we get to further substantive, of course, conversations. It's about how does it change the conversation in these spaces? And we have a million examples. I'm sure everybody in this room has a million examples of how it matters when there are different voices at the table, but those voices are not. It's not about your demographic checkbox, it's the idea that that demographic identity or that intersection of identities creates distinct lived experiences and perspectives.
Speaker 2:And for those who really push back on me on this, I say well, when a veteran runs for Congress, we hear all around like oh well, they're a veteran, they must know about national defense. And like this is no shade to veterans, I agree, right. Like this around like oh well, they're a veteran, they must know about national defense. And like this is no shade to veterans, I agree, right. Like this is like there's an experience, there's a lived experience and perspective that they're going to bring that is unique. You have a distinct experience. We know, across all measures of education, access to resources, engagement with police, whatever it may be, we know that those experiences are different. Those two matter in policymaking because all of those issues are also being legislated. No-transcript.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think Monica asked a really good question in the chat around, you know. Are there any thoughts about quotas for women, especially in the legislative bodies? There must be some examples in a few Latin American countries where quotas have helped women progress through their legislative and representative process. Is it a strategy that maybe we should look at or consider? Even if it's not something we can formally put into place, maybe it's something that we aspire to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there are always these questions and there's a organization called Represent Women that is really focused on structural solutions, right, like how can we change rules and processes in order to increase women's representation? And so they will raise this at times. I will admit that I am often like a kind of not critic, but I am dubious that that is possible in our system just because it's a constitutional change. So, as you all know, like to make a change like that to move from what would be so quoted as almost no universally really occur in places that are not candidate-centered. So they're proportional systems of representation, and I just find it I couldn't imagine our current elected leaders allowing any move to not a candidate-centered system. But the ways around that then are do you create? So?
Speaker 2:In other countries they've created party quotas. Again, that doesn't work here, because we choose the party, doesn't choose the nominees. We, as voters, choose the nominees. So the one place that we have done it, or some states I think it's only like two now but that have done it, are create some level of quotas in appointees, and then we have tried to do that in informally when, like a governor's elected, you'll see these efforts. They're often called women's appointments projects. I don't know if they've occurred in the states that you all are from, but where organizations have come together. In fact it would be great for this group because it's like and they give what Mitt Romney got in trouble for the binders versus full of women. That's actually not a bad thing. I like defend Mitt Romney on this one, because that's what the Women's Appointments Project would do. It would say here are all these qualified women. We are asking you to commit to choosing 50% women in these appointed positions. So we've seen some minor success of that level of quota at that level of political power. But I think electorally it's hard. And then the last thing I'll say on that is it is how effective it's been across the world. There's a lot of studies on that.
Speaker 2:I think mixed questions. It depends on the type of quotas, because sometimes what's happening is certainly like placeholder positions, right? So the critique of it is oh, they're choosing these women who just will vote in line with. We see that in our own system. Even that doesn't have quotas. You know, like folks who are critical and I want to be careful not to like buy into that critique. But I think sometimes in some countries where there is strong power of a central person or party, that that often happens. So then this gets to the question of how do you ensure that women retain their independence and power if you're in a system where it's more appointed than it is selected by the general body? But it's a great question, and I think we can think about other ways to pressure parties and also change voter thinking a little bit about the importance of representation in ways that could lead to it's not quotas, but it could lead to more emphasis on parity and representation.
Speaker 3:I definitely appreciate what you're saying around the party structure and some of the challenges or opportunities around parties in the United States and I think with younger generations in particular, the party structure is really becoming this very cumbersome. I used to be part of the younger generation. I'm not anymore, but that generation in general, you know, really finds the party structure really challenging and has created sort of a disincentive for their engagement, I think in particular for this upcoming election. And I think we sort of all saw maybe the outcome of party influencing on women's engagement in politics. In the response from Senator Katie Britt I saw Erica put that in the chat.
Speaker 3:She's the youngest Republican woman in the Senate. We're certainly happy to have her representation there, but I wonder, does she really represent a common experience among women number one? And then how she ended up in that role, if you look back around that seat and how she got there, you know what role do you think the party played in her being there and influencing and facilitating or potentially hindering women's careers, particularly from a national standpoint? I think there's some challenges there. Even when you look back around, you know Hillary Clinton's work coming into the presidential election the last you know a couple rounds, so just curious if you have any thoughts there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of directions to go in, you know, on Katie Britt in particular, look, I think we have to be able to hold a couple of things at one time, which is to say, like I'm going to celebrate the fact that we have a young Republican woman in the Senate, and that is a milestone. Again, does she have a distinct lived experience? She absolutely does. Does she have the full power to bring that forth in the current Senate? Maybe not, but that's true of Democratic women as well. Right, like that's not so much like being restrained by the Republican Party, it's being a young new member. I think, in the case of giving the response, not to go too far down that road. But that is a you rarely win in that position, right? Most, I think, if you're a political practitioner, you don't really necessarily want your member or your boss to be in that role, because it doesn't end too well for most anybody. And I think what you saw in her case was again this reaction of like she was highly controlled, it was highly produced, it was inconsistent with what we've seen before, and so I don't think there's any denying that there was influence beyond her own in how she gave that response. What I do think it showed is and for any of you who haven't seen it yet, rebecca Tracer has a cover story out in New York Magazine that came out like two days ago about the challenges for Republican women in navigating gender and candidate representation in this moment, particularly in this kind of in a Trump Republican Party. I've been writing about this for like a decade, so so glad that she wrote this and, of course, she did it way better than me and you know she comes from a real, she comes from a partisan perspective, so like acknowledge that she's a Democrat and a progressive, so she's highly critical. But I think her points if you kind of step back from that are very real, which is that Republican women are confronting an electorate that has particularly staunch views around gender. So questions like society is becoming too soft and feminine, much higher numbers of Trump supporters, even of Republicans. So I want to distinguish. There's difference there.
Speaker 2:Believe that, believe that men are being punished just for being men, believe in more traditional roles and representations for women such as the fact that she's sitting in a kitchen in that response and have firmer beliefs of what we would call in the literature, hostile sexism. This is things like feminism has gone too far. Women are asking for special favors, that kind of belief. That's true among men and women on the more conservative side of the aisle. So you're seeing these women in highly powerful positions try to cater to an electorate that doesn't necessarily align with the belief that women should be in those positions.
Speaker 2:And then also a presidential candidate nominee who's the head of the party, who's highly masculinized, right, so engages in this very masculine I'm the tough guy, I'm the manliest man, man, man. So then masculinity becomes the standard that's so important. So what she writes about is it's like these women trying to do all things. I have to be super masculine, so let me get the gun out, let me do the hunting and all of that. But I also have to be really feminine and aligned with those expectations. And what we saw with Katie Britt, I think, was more on that side of the aisle. But then you saw the like and they're coming for you. You know that really severe language. So I feel a sort of sympathy for that, because that is the intersection of gender and party that's creating a difficulty for women on that side of the aisle, especially it happens for Democratic women. But the gender dynamics of the Democratic Party have evolved in ways that I think have made it a little less challenging to circle those squares, or however we want to talk about it.
Speaker 3:Well, I think it's interesting when you, I think when I, because I watched the response live and I agree, anyone in the role of doing the response is already losing in some ways, just from a political point of view. One, it's really late, especially if you're on the East Coast, and so it's challenging to have the right energy and to bring that there. But I was really reflecting and juxtaposing her response to Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response, because Sarah was really part of the political machine too and, you know, came home to Arkansas and played that role very differently, you know, in her own response. And so I think it's even interesting how we treat women in particular roles, you know, in different ways across parties, and I'm really I just I'm just going to put this here and we can leave it later if we want. But even the engagement between Representative Taylor Greene and Crockett recently that kind of became this meme.
Speaker 3:You know, while it was an interesting and has and it made me giggle a little bit, I also felt a little bit sad that it happened between two women, you know, in a very public space. It just really I thought it really engendered a lot of stereotypes, right, and it calls on a narrative that sometimes men use when women are in executive roles. That you know. Not that men never argue, because I think we can pull up lots and lots of congressional testimony where they argue among themselves, but it felt really targeted in the way that it played in the media was really interesting. So I think that also can be really discouraging for women who might be interested in doing this but really just don't want to engage in that kind of behavior generally, right Like, but you're going to be in situations where you have to tackle that and and really reflect on your own behavior, because I'm not sure I would have behaved any different in that situation. So we would all like to, but it's a very public situation.
Speaker 2:Just real quick, speak to that because I think what it reflected to for me and I'm going to get a little academic here, but, like it's, there is so much of this. We talk about it as gender power, like a balance of gender power. So how much do we kind of value traditional, like femininity, value traditional masculinity, obviously recognizing these are all stereotypes, they're all socially constructed. We know this, ok, but that's like that's the balance, right. And so women historically have suffered because in these institutions there's been this emphasis on masculine traits, expectations. I mean, when Donald Trump says you don't have the presidential look, it's pretty obvious what he means. Right, like you don't look like the person who's been here before. That's the overt way, but there are lots of less overt ways. We criticize women and say they don't fit the masculine standard, so then we push women to behave in masculine ways and prove their masculine credentials.
Speaker 2:What I really, what bothered me about that moment, to your point, is that both of the women were playing into those gendered standards in ways that reinforce them instead of what I really hope we would do Right, which is disrupt them.
Speaker 2:That, like this, there isn't like disrupt that balance, that your value is somehow based on your femininity or your values based on your masculinity?
Speaker 2:Easy for me to say from an outside place, but I think that we see political practitioners this goes back to Brit and how all these women also are told to behave. Political practitioners are like we need to win the next, not even election, the next political moment. And again, no shade to practitioners. I get that that's how you win, but at the same point, there's a longer term impact of that behavior which is changing our minds as voters and observers about what we expect and what we value in these folks. And so when I did an interview with a consultant this was about 10 years ago and we were talking through some of this and he was like well, I'm not a social change agent, like that's not my job, right, like I'm here to win. And I was like I get that right. But how do we try to think about some of the longer-term impact of the work that folks in the political sphere do when they're crafting kind of candidate presentation strategy and messaging?
Speaker 3:So I think that brings up a really good question around when we're thinking about how we're going to vote and engage in the upcoming election. I think I was really reflecting on an interview that you did with FiveThirtyEight around the soccer mom mentality in the early 90s and how everyone was like in this monolith of voting. I think we all know that. You know the post Roe era is really a big narrative, but are there any other narratives or do you think Roe is going to be as big as others are? Are kind of portraying it to be.
Speaker 2:It's a really good question. I think we don't have enough information yet, but I but I do think this question about Roe is important. I think the media already is like that's the one thing, that's the one thing women are going to vote for. And I don't want to discount the impact. We saw the impacts of the fall of Roe in specific states, particularly states that had abortion on the ballot right. So states that had abortion ballot initiatives, absolutely, if you look at the impact, particularly for Democratic women. So increase in registration, increase in turnout, things like that, there was a notable impact. I think. I say I think because that was the immediate, you know, kind of we got the data, we got immediately. I think it still needs to be kind of pushed through the more rigorous kind of peer reviewed analysis, but I think it's fair to say Going into this election.
Speaker 2:I was just because I saw, you know we talked about a little bit what we were talking about. So I was looking at the Marist NPR poll that came out yesterday. So folks have probably like heard about it because it got a good amount of attention. And this is just like the. You know they cover a lot of things, including the horse race. But one of the things they ask is what is the most important issue to your vote, your presidential vote? And they have a good, they have some good crosstabs so you can look at it by party and gender. So just to give you a sense of it 39% of Democratic women said preserving democracy was the top issue influencing their vote.
Speaker 2:So that was the plurality. 14% said abortion. 5% of Democratic men said abortion, 6% for Republican women, 2% for Republican men. When it comes to independent women, obviously we're attentive and practitioners are going to be attentive to independent women. 12% say abortion. But again for that group, the plurality 33% said preserving democracy. So I think that we have to be clear-eyed. That like yes, abortion is a mobilizing issue. It has been on the right in this cycle because the threat is to those who are looking for preservation of reproductive rights. The threat will motivate engagement and that is why you see Biden doing ads on abortion and get targeting them. For those of you who get you know targeted ads on your social media, you're probably getting those ads based on your demographics.
Speaker 2:But I don't necessarily think I think we would lose out, miss out on the bigger story by not paying attention to these other issues that are really motivating women.
Speaker 2:And the last piece there I'd say is I'd be paying much more attention and the media typically, and campaigns as well, have done a terrible job of this over time paying attention to women of color broadly, but specifically Latinas and Black women voters here, and as well as young women voters here, those intersections in those particular groups.
Speaker 2:We need to know enthusiasm, turnout and, particularly for Latinas, direction of support in order to know what's going to happen in November, especially in the presidential level, but also in states where they're changing demographics. And I say that particularly for Latinas, as well as Asian women, for Black women you're really talking about. There's not going to be that much movement, despite what some of the arguments are in the news right now. Not going to be that much movement in the percentage you know, like how, the percentage of Black women 90 plus who are going to vote for Joe Biden. However, if that turnout is down, those are the women who have been the most critical part of the Democratic coalition, the most critical part of the Democratic coalition. And so, if that turnout and enthusiasm, disillusionment is high and you're speaking only to one issue and not the issues that matter to those groups of voters which are going to be different, then I think that's something for the Democrats and the Republicans to be concerned about.
Speaker 3:One thing that I was thinking about as you were talking was, yes, black women in the last presidential election. But I think even I follow Arizona politics really closely because of the work that I do, and women, particularly Native women, were very important in that election for senatorial race. I think they're currently being targeted from what I can see on the outside. They're currently being targeted, um, from what I can see on the outside, not having not living there um, uh, for the upcoming kind of close race that uh could change. You know the dynamic of women in the Senate and so, um, I think it would be, um, it's still a good time to be a female voter. It's really important, um to pay attention and and to make decisions.
Speaker 3:Um, and I and I agree with you, I think Oklahoma really thought that we would have a more stronger democratic turnout or our elections would look different when medical marijuana was on the ballot a couple of years ago, and I don't know if coattails things always works out, that's. I mean, that's kind of where we are, and so I hope we're not over-relying on that, especially as women, who often manage the finances in the home, are really clear about the economy too, and I know this group you know is really involved in the economy and investment and sort of looking after our own families. You know, looking forward to November, now that we're through the primaries here, there might be a couple of elections. I know locally we will have at least one more here in Oklahoma. Are there any predictions for November? Anything that we should be doing as as women, you know, working in our communities, preparing for the outcome of 2024 in any way, anything you're thinking about?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'll start with kind of predictions, which you know, with all the necessary caveats. Political scientists are really bad at predicting things, but for women office holders, as I mentioned before, I don't expect that we're going to see big gains, and I think we need to be ready for that, especially in communities that are advocating for that increase in representation. We have to be able to speak to why and what to do differently to ensure that we don't have that stasis in every election Again. We're still underrepresented at every level, and so, while I don't think stasis is the sign of impending doom, it's a problem. It's a problem because we're too far from parity and too far from fair representation. So at this point in the cycle, from what we know from primaries, it looks like we'll see more gains for Democrats than Republican women, at the congressional level at the least. I'll get into a little more specificity. So, for context, women are 27% of all House candidates already filed. There's only four states left to file, so that's a pretty. That number probably won't change much. That's really consistent with the last three cycles in terms of the percentage, with 61% of House nominations decided, so we have more of a ways to go there. House nominations decided, so we have a more of a ways to go there. Women are 29% of House nominees. That's down from the last two cycles, so kind of making it through to the next cycle. Not hugely, but it is down In raw numbers. It looks like the numbers of women candidates at the federal level will fall short of previous highs. It won't be a record year. That's true for men as well, because we did look at that. We were like is it just that fewer people overall are running? I think that's part of the story. But we are seeing a slightly higher drop for women and a highest drop for Republican women, at least writ large. It's hard with Republican women because we're starting from such a lower number. So I want to be like all the necessary caveats that like a larger percentage drop is fewer in numbers. But I do think it's important, like it's a keep our eyes on that and why it's happening. So then when we I'm going to focus on the US House at the Senate level, it's we almost know what's going to focus on the US House At the Senate level. We almost know what's going to happen. I mean there are these unpredictable kind of races, but if things pan out, I think the most we can do is increase by one for women in the Senate. I think I have that right. It's like one or two For the House.
Speaker 2:This is a little more complicated math. But we have to look at the women who are leaving. 13 women are leaving. That gives us a 13-member deficit. To start with, eight women, as of right now, are incumbents, are in vulnerable seats, so that's another eight deficit we could have. Then we have to look at potential pickups. So we look at non-incumbents. Right now there are eight women favored, like eight women who look like they're going to win. So say they fell eight of those 13 original slots. There are seven more women in competitive, non-incumbent women in competitive contests. Any of that, as of today, gets us to almost like equal right. It doesn't get us to higher. Now we've got 40% of House nominations left to make. So we have other opportunities that will include vulnerable incumbents but that will also include some potential pickups.
Speaker 2:But this is why I'm saying like I think we're at a year where we're not going to see huge net gains in women's representation at the congressional level.
Speaker 2:It's hard for us to do this at the state legislative level because we can tell you how many nominees there are, we're pretty sure again that that's not going to be a record.
Speaker 2:The one distinguishing characteristic at the state level we put out a blog on this, like two weeks ago that I think is notable is the only group at the intersection of gender and party, the only group that's seeing an increase just in overall state legislative candidacies, are Democratic women. So something's going on. Many people say to me immediately it's abortion. I don't know that it's abortion because for all the reasons I just talked about, I don't think that's the only issue motivating women. However, I think that is probably among the things because we know this is happening in state legislatures and so there may be both more active recruitment as well as motivation among some women running at those state legislative levels. But the proof's kind of in the pudding. Do they get through to the nominee stage? So we're paying attention to that. And then, just in terms of prediction for the presidency, I will just say the disillusionment in the electorate benefits Donald Trump?
Speaker 3:Just I want to. There was a good question for Monica, but I'm going to take liberty here and ask really quick around if there is a generational difference in how in trends for women, because I know we're talking a lot about race and kind of party, but you mentioned a little bit about young women, but I wasn't sure if there was anything more there that we wanted to tease out as a group.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, I think we are seeing so in terms of office, holding a positive trend. Not, you know, we don't have all the data in 24 already about the age of everybody, right, but even you can see it anecdotally and then you can see it kind of by concrete data in the last three cycles younger women being more willing and able to run and be successful. They're also the ones who are pushing boundaries on how women run and present themselves. You know, my favorite example of this is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her first ad which, by the way, she never had to air because it went viral, so she never had to pay for it. Um, the first line is women like me aren't, aren't supposed to run for office. And what she's doing in that ad, I would argue, is she's saying the onus is on all of you to think differently about who's supposed to run and what a member of Congress is supposed to look like, instead of typically in campaigns, when we put the onus on the candidate to adapt to the expectations, right, to make her look like a member of Congress or a candidate in a way that would be more aligned. So I think women, younger women in particular, are pushing boundaries. I think we're seeing them run.
Speaker 2:You talked about Katie Britt I'm totally having a moment but the Kate Kat Kamek in Florida. So there are women on both sides of the aisle that are younger women who are coming into these spaces. I think we'll see more of that this cycle. There are a couple of women I can kind of see their faces on the pickups that we might get that are younger. So we'll see some of that generational change.
Speaker 2:But on the flip side, that disillusionment is both preventing some of the younger, more engaged women to decide to run, and then also in the project that we did, this Rethinking Power project, when we were talking to a lot of women officeholders and even those working in these fields, when they get into office especially younger and more progressive women or, on the Republican side, arguably more moderate women their base is not sticking with them once they're in, and so the ability to stay is a real problem. So on the progressive side you see it most commonly it's like an activist who, thankful to them for like being willing to run, they go into an institution where they can't make the kind of quick change that their constituencies want, and then they're called traitors or sellouts or whatever, and I think that's a real problem, because we're going to lose women, and particularly young and often more progressive women who were willing to take it on, but then you know, either lost or just decided not to run again.
Speaker 3:I think there was even risk of that with AOC early in her term. Right, there was really a push from leadership in the house to for her to assimilate for lack of a better word into operations of the house and she had support, you know, among her peers and there was a group that you know then became very stylized. But I definitely agree and there's some cause. Oh, go ahead, yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, I was going to change the subject. Go ahead. I was just going to say it gets to your question about what. What we can all do on the positive side, which is like you can't just elect a woman and then be like great she's in, like folks have to be supportive when the party leadership pushes against them, when other voters come out to attack them, when they're like you have to be able to stick with those women, and sticking with those women is not only voting, it's like getting other people in that, explaining to other people why they're doing what they're doing, cause I've been doing that here.
Speaker 2:Like we have a city council member who got elected our first LGBT lesbian woman and my folks are like, oh, she's not doing enough. And I'm like, but here's what she's doing and the constraints of what she can do and I need you to stick with her. Right, we can give money Like some of us don't love that. That's the way the political system works. But money matters. It's not only because it matters for the campaign, it's also an indicator of support. So people use that as a way to say like, oh well, she has money. I guess I could vote for her because she's going to win. So we have power to do those things whatever is most comfortable for you.
Speaker 2:But, like, there are ways to get involved that go beyond the vote. I think that was one of the questions you know and I would say also for those, I think there was some discussion of the supermajority and the challenge of that. I will say what I learned. You all will know better, but what I learned in doing a lot of interviews in Oklahoma was like there are a lot of local levels and different areas in the state where you can have an influence that maybe aren't the state legislature but can make policy, and there's a lot of foundational work going on as well in Oklahoma that's pushing policy outside of governmental structures. So I think there are still these places to exercise what I would still call political power and influence. It just may not be in the style or target of place that you think.
Speaker 3:Now that's a really great point and I appreciate you picking up, because that's kind of where I was going was like, what do we do? Because I think everyone you know, post primary there's a little fatigue always after the day of voting and a lot of door. There was a lot of door knocking in my neighborhood. I don't know about everywhere else, but it was just a little bit of fatigue. So you know, we have a couple, we can get a day of rest maybe, but you know how do we get recharged and and what are some tips, kind of moving into the next cycle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think some of the things I mentioned is, you know, obviously, supporting candidates financially, volunteering, word of mouth, all the things you're talking about and we talked about making the case to other people, about why it's important that they participate, like making it real. Or you all probably have more stories about like things you've worked on. You know, whether you're an advocate, whether you're in business, you know in all different areas of like how that was affected by government. I think making that real to people who feel like it's they just want to throw in the towel can make a difference. Or the folks who are like I'm not voting because the presidential is so oh, I just really don't like these old white guys. Cool, like fine, but there's a lot of other things you need to vote for. I would still argue you need to vote for them too, but like kind of, really, there's a little bit of education that those of us who maybe are more engaged could do. Doesn't always work, but it's worth it.
Speaker 2:I think I would also say like we have a responsibility not to rely on our own echo chambers. It is if you only follow your TikTok, if you only follow your Instagram feed, like some of you are going to think like this party's winning and it's a shoe in. Some of you are going to think this party's going to win every like, or you think every the world's going to end tomorrow. That's, I feel, like what my feed is. But like I have to actively myself be like, okay, I'm not looking at that Right. Like I have to look at more tangible, if you will like, kind of measures of how things are looking.
Speaker 2:I worry about polls. Like you have to filter the information that we're all taking in to keep us engaged, and sometimes it also means you have to, as you mentioned, take a break, and so I've been reading a lot of books that have nothing to do with politics so that I can refuel, to kind of be engaged when I need to be engaged. So I think that's a blanket thing that I'm sure we've all tried to think about. What are the ways that we can refuel and pull back so that we can be energized, especially as we go into November, to participate in whatever way we think we can?
