Action Alert | When Women Vote
On November 8th, women certainly made their mark in the midterm elections. Let’s break it down a bit:
Herstory Makers
As newly elected leaders prepare to begin their terms, All In Together (AIT) and Gender Avenger (GA) look to celebrate the women who made history in the 2022 Midterms at every level of government.
After 246 years, America has finally elected a woman to Congress from every state after Becca Balint won her race to become Vermont’s first Congresswoman. Alabama also elected its first woman Senator, Katie Britt. There are some big wins for women of color this year, too, with Summer Lee becoming the first black woman to represent Pennsylvania and Delia Ramirez becoming the first Latina to represent Illinois in Congress.
But the big story is on the state and local levels. There are now a record-breaking 12 women serving as governors after Arkansas, Massachusetts, and New York all elected women governors for the first time. As for the rest?
Maura Healy of Massachusetts and Tina Kotek of Oregon are the first out lesbian governors.
Andrea Campbell will be the first Black woman to be elected Massachusetts’ Attorney General.
Aruna Miller will serve as the first Asian American Lieutenant Governor of Maryland.
Charity Clark will be the first woman elected to serve as Vermont’s Attorney General.
Leslie Rutledge is the first woman to serve as Arkansas’s Lieutenant governor.
Nabilah Islam will be the first Muslim woman to serve in the Georgia State Senate.
Richelle Montoya will be the first woman to serve as Vice President of the Navajo Nation.
Shirley Weber will be the first Black woman to be elected California Secretary of State.
Stephanie Thomas will be the first Black woman elected to be Connecticut’s Secretary of State.
Zooey Zephyr will be the first transgender legislator in the Montana state government.
Karen Bass will be the first woman to serve as mayor of Los Angeles.
We Still Need More
Although women are continuing to make history in every election, we have a long way to go until we reach gender parity in elected office.
At least 145 women will now serve in Congress, but this means that women only make up about 27% of the congressional body. And at the state level, women are just under a quarter of elected executive officials and a little over a third of elected state legislators.
When Women Vote
As AIT's CEO Lauren Leader put in her recent op-ed in The Hill, “As go women, so goes the country.” Women make up the majority of voters, and they certainly flexed their power on November 8. In Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer (aka Big Gretch) rode to reelection on a wave of women voters who backed her 62%-36% against challenger Tudor Dixon. In another woman-on-woman race in Arizona, Katie Hobbs' smaller but still substantial lead with women voters (54% to 45%) over Kari Lake likely fueled her small margin of victory.
When President Biden thanked young voters for saving his party, he really should have been thanking young women. According to exit polls, young voters didn’t have the surge in turnout that Democrats were hoping for (which we need to talk about later), but they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. Young women really delivered for the Dems, with 72% of 18-29-year-olds voting for Democratic House candidates.
Why Are We Talking About This?
Gender Avenger has recently merged with the non-profit organization All In Together. It is AIT's mission to encourage, equip, educate, and empower voting-age women to participate fully in America’s civic and political life.
AIT is one of the only national organizations empowering and mobilizing women across the political spectrum to become advocates and leaders at work and in their communities. GA and AIT are uniting in our shared passion for gender equity and hoping that our combined forces will be able to further women’s representation across all spheres.
Learn more about AIT and the team here, and be sure to follow AIT on your favorite social channel: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.