Record Number of Women Running for Office in 2018
March 27, 2018
As Rebecca Traister wrote in her New York Post cover story, a record amount of women are probably going to run for office this year, from a pro-choice millennial Republican running for a New Jersey House seat to a Sex in the City actress running for New York governess.
To date, 390 women are planning to run for the House of Representatives, a figure that’s higher now than at any other point in American history. Of the 390, 22 of them are non-incumbent black women — a figure especially groundbreaking given that there are only 18 black women in the House right now. Meanwhile, 49 women are likely to be running for Senate, more than 68% higher than the number of those who had announced in 2014.
Emily’s List, an organization which backs Democratic female candidates who support pro-choice legislation, reported that it witnessed a dramatic spike in information requests from women after the 2016 Presidential election. Over the span of a month after Nov. 8, 2016, Emily’s List was contacted by 1,000 women seeking advice about running for office, the organization told NBC— that’s compared to 920 inquiries Emily’s List fielded from women in the entire 2015-2016 campaign year.
As women continue to pursue public office in years to come, the composition of the nation’s government is sure to change in both partisan affiliation and gender.