The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) has tracked women’s political candidacies for three decades. Since 2004, CAWP has collected women candidates’ racial identification, relying primarily on candidate self-identification. This year, we are reporting this data pre-election and in greater depth than we have before, providing summary information on...

We know that women are on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. According the U.S. Census Bureau , women hold 76% of all heath care jobs. More specifically, women are over 85% of registered nurses nationwide, dominating one of the groups battling coronavirus via patient care in hospitals nationwide. Women are also 31 of 50 (62%) of state health...

Today is Election Day in Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia. [i] Either one or both chambers of each state’s legislature is on the ballot in this off-year election, giving us a chance to identify gender trends before the bulk of states hold state and federal elections in 2020. 1. Are more women on the ballot in 2019? The charts below show recent trends in...

In this post, we take a first look at women running for state legislative seats in 2016. The detail and predictability of our data is limited at this level due to the high number of candidates and races, but our outlook shows that we enter Election Day with a record-level number of female state legislative nominees, with enough poised to win that we expect...

What will the U.S. House of Representatives look like in 2017? Combining CAWP data with race ratings from the Cook Political Report reveals that women may well reach a new high in numerical representation in the 115 th House, but that outcome relies upon favorable breaks in the most competitive races. Moreover, the most positive outcomes in 2016 are likely...

While this year saw a record number of women filing for Senate races, November’s ballots won’t offer a record number of women nominees. Still, depending on how the most competitive races of the cycle break on November 8 th, we may see a net increase in the number of women serving in the U.S. Senate in January 2017. Candidates and Nominees Forty (28D, 12R)...