Election Analysis

  • How Common is it for Women Lieutenant Governors to Become Governor?

    CAWP Staff

    At least four women lieutenant governors are running for governor in 2025 or 2026. In 2025, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears is the Republican nominee for governor. Already, three current lieutenant governors - Nancy Dahlstrom (R-AK), Pamela Evette (R-SC), and Sara Rodriguez (D-WI) - have announced their bids for governor in the 2026 cycle...

  • A Woman Veteran Could be Elected Governor for the First Time in 2025

    Two women veterans are on gubernatorial ballots in 2025. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) served in the U.S. Navy, and Winsome Earle-Sears (R-VA) served in the U.S. Marines. They are two of four women veterans who have been major-party nominees for governor since 2010. In 2022, Theresa Livingston (D), an Air Force veteran, was unsuccessful in her bid for governor of...

  • Women Continued to Outvote Men in 2024 Despite Overall Drop in Turnout

    August 26, 2025 marks the 105th anniversary of the certification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited denying or abridging citizens' right to vote on account of sex. While turnout among women voters lagged men's turnout immediately after suffrage due to formal and informal contributors to disenfranchisement, the gender gap in...

  • Women Have Achieved Near Parity with Men Among Democratic State Legislators

    In the past decade, women have achieved near parity with men among Democratic state legislators. Women remain less than a quarter of all Republican state legislators.From 2016 to 2025, women have increased their representation in state legislatures by almost ten percentage points (24.4% to 33.5%). Women are now nearly 50% of all Democratic state legislators...
    map of us with dark blue states denoting women majorities of democratic caucuses