Primary Season Ends with Statewide Executive Success for Women in 2018

September 14, 2018

From March to December 2018, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation (BLFF) and the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) partnered to offer Gender Watch 2018, which tracked, analyzed, and illuminated gender dynamics in the 2018 midterm elections. With the help of expert scholars and practitioners, Gender Watch 2018 furthered public understanding of how gender influences candidate strategy, voter engagement and expectations, media coverage, and electoral outcomes in campaigns. The blog below was written for Gender Watch 2018, as part of our collective effort to raise questions, suggest answers, and complicate popular discussions about gender’s role U.S. elections.

The final three primaries before Election Day 2018 were held this week in in New Hampshire (9/11), Rhode Island (9/12), and New York (9/13). Full results, including candidate lists, summaries, and historical comparisons, are available via the Center for American Women and Politics’ (CAWP) Election Watch page.

Among the most notable results for women:

2 more women candidates secured major-party nominations for governor in New Hampshire (Democratic challenger Molly Kelly) and Rhode Island (Democratic incumbent Gina Raimondo), bringing the total to 16 (12D, 4R) in this year’s election. The previous high was 10.
Securing the nomination for attorney general of New York, Tish James (D) could become the first woman of color to win statewide office in New York.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea (D), who is the first Latina woman to win statewide office in New England, was unopposed in her primary bid for re-election this year.
In New Hampshire, the retirement of Representative Carol Shea-Porter (D) and the nomination of two men to fill her seat in this week’s primary means that the state will no longer hold the distinction of having the only all-women congressional delegation.
No women ran for the U.S. House in Rhode Island’s primary election, making it the only state to have no women who filed as candidates for the U.S. House this year. Rhode Island has also had no woman in Congress since 1991.

New Hampshire

Governor: Molly Kelly won the Democratic nomination for governor of New Hampshire. She will challenge incumbent Governor Chris Sununu (R) this fall in a race currently favoring Sununu. If successful in November, Kelly would be the 4th woman governor of New Hampshire.

U.S. House: Incumbent Representative Ann McLane Kuster (D) was unopposed in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She is strongly favored to win re-election this fall. In the Republican contest in NH-02, 1 (1R) woman lost. In New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district, where incumbent Representative Carol Shea-Porter (D) is retiring, 3 (3D) women were defeated in their bids for the Democratic nomination for the seat.

Rhode Island

Governor: Incumbent Governor Gina Raimondo secured the Democratic nomination for re-election in Rhode Island. She became the first woman governor of Rhode Island in 2015. With Molly Kelly, Raimondo joins a final group of 16 (12D, 4R) women as major-party gubernatorial nominees in election 2018.

Other Statewide Executive Office: Incumbent Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea (D) was the only woman on the ballot for a statewide executive office other than governor in Rhode Island’s primary elections. She was unopposed in her bid for the Democratic nomination for re-election. No women competed for attorney general, lieutenant governor, or state treasurer. Gorbea is the first Latina to be elected to statewide office in New England.

U.S. House: Women were 0 of 6 candidates for the U.S. House in Rhode Island this year, ensuring that the state will continue to have no women in its congressional delegation. The last – and only – woman to represent Rhode Island in Congress was Claudine Schneider (1981-1991).

New York

New York held statewide and state legislative primaries on September 13th, separately from federal primaries held earlier this election season.

Governor: Cynthia Nixon (D), the only woman candidate for governor, was defeated by incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary for governor of New York. Stephanie Miner will run as an Independent in November.

Other Statewide Executive Office:

Tish James defeated 2 other women in the Democratic primary for attorney general of New York. If successful in November, she would become the first woman of color to be elected statewide in New York.
In the race for lieutenant governor, Julia Killian (R) ran unopposed for the Republican nomination and incumbent Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul (D) secured the Democratic nomination for re-election.

Records Broken

As noted by CAWP, the end of the primary season (with the exception of Louisiana’s House and Mississippi Senate special jungle primaries on November 6th) yields a number of records broken for women candidates and nominees:

234 (182D, 52R) women are nominees for the U.S. House, up from a previous high of 167 (set in 2016)
22 (15D, 7R) women are nominees for the U.S. Senate, up from a previous high of 18 (set in 2012)
16 (12D, 4R) women are nominees for governor, up from a previous high of 10 (first set in 1994)

For a more detailed summary of women’s congressional candidacies this year, see CAWP’s latest analysis. In addition, find a full list of candidates and nominees at CAWP’s Election Watch.

Kelly Dittmar

Kelly Dittmar is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers–Camden and Director of Research and Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She is the co-author of A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Representation Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018) (with Kira Sanbonmatsu and Susan J. Carroll) and author of Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns (Temple University Press, 2015).