Women Congressional Nominees Drop in Election 2024

The number of women nominees for Congress in the 2024 elections falls short of both record levels and recent election cycles, according to new data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. This follows previous data from CAWP showing similar declines in the number of women candidates this year. The decline in the number of women general election nominees is concentrated entirely in the Republican Party.

CAWP will host a press briefing on October 8th, 2024 at 1pm ET to discuss this data and other information and emerging themes from the 2024 elections. Participants will include CAWP Director Debbie Walsh, Director of Research Kelly Dittmar, Director of Data Chelsea Hill, and Senior Scholar Kira Sanbonmatsu.

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“There are bright spots for women running for Congress this year. Win rates for Democratic women and their share of all Democratic nominees show that dedicated efforts to support women candidates pay dividends,” said CAWP Director Debbie Walsh. “But parity is a distant dream if it isn’t supported across the political spectrum. In just the second election in which a woman is a major-party nominee for president, numbers like these remind us both of the remarkable progress we have made to get here and the long journey that lies ahead.”

CAWP’s congressional general election analysis, Post-Primary Analysis: Women in 2024 Congressional Elections, contains detailed information about women candidates by race and ethnicity, party, and puts the 2024 election into broader context with comparisons to previous election years, breakdowns about win rates by party and gender, and an analysis of women nominees as a percentage of all major-party nominees.

U.S. House

• 256 (191D, 65R) women are general election nominees for the U.S. House in 2024. The record of 298 was set in 2020, and 260 women were House nominees in 2022.
  • The number of Democratic women House nominees, 191, is up from 178 in 2022, though short of their record of 204 in 2020.
  • Meanwhile, the number of Republican women House nominees, 65, is down from 82 in 2022 and significantly lower than their record of 94 in 2020.
• Women represent a drastically smaller portion of nominees for U.S. House among Republicans than they do among Democrats.
  • Women are 30.9% of all general election nominees for the U.S. House in 2024.
  • Women are nearing parity among Democratic House nominees, with 45.9% of Democratic nominees being women.
  • However, just 15.7% of Republican House nominees are women.
• When broken down by race/ethnicity, the numbers of Black, Latina, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Native, and white women U.S. House nominees each fall short of record highs. The number of Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) women nominees for the U.S. House in 2024 matches the high of five, first set in 2020.
• Nominees will be chosen in one more state – Louisiana – in the state’s jungle primary on Election Day. Up to three women could emerge as U.S. House nominees and/or winners in these contests; even if all three are successful, 2024 House nominee totals would still fall just short of 2022 counts and well short of the record.

U.S. Senate

• 21 (15D, 6R) women are general election nominees for the U.S. Senate in 2024, a slight increase from the 20 women Senate nominees in 2022 but short of the record high of 23 Senate nominees in 2018.
  
  • Democratic women’s Senate nominations in 2024 are up from 2022, when there were 13 Democratic women Senate nominees, and match the record high of 15 nominees first set in 2018.
  • In contrast, the number of Republican women Senate nominees, 6, is lower in 2024 than in the three previous election cycles. The record for GOP women Senate nominees is 9, set in 2020; there were 8 GOP women Senate nominees in 2018 and 7 in 2022.
• When broken down by race/ethnicity, the numbers of Black, Latina, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Native, and white women U.S. Senate nominees each fall short of record highs. There have been no Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) women nominees for the U.S. Senate to date.

Democratic women candidates won U.S. House and Senate primaries at the highest rate of any gender by party subgroup in election 2024, outperforming Democratic men, Republican women, and Republican men.

• In House races, 64% of Democratic women, 46% of Democratic men, 41% of Republican women, and 45.5% of Republican men won their primary elections.
• In Senate races, 51.7% of Democratic women, 30.5% of Democratic men, 28.6% of Republican women, and 26.9% of Republican men won their primary elections.

While the numbers of nominees are down, the outlook for women's House and Senate representation will be most dependent on their chances for success in contests where they are nominees. Our full post-primary analysis of women in congressional contests uses current race forecasts to show that the number of women senators is unlikely to increase by more than one as a result of the 2024 election, with a decrease possible based on current forecasts. In the House, a net gain, loss, or stasis all remain possible outcomes for Democratic and Republican women’s representation from 2024 to 2025.

For additional context, see CAWP’s Post-Primary Analysis: Women in 2024 Congressional Elections, and register to attend our briefing on women in the 2024 general election here.