Welcome to our Election Update for Thursday, Oct. 25! Democrats currently have a 5 in 6 chance (84 percent) to flip the House. That’s a little lower than Monday’s mark of 87 percent. Their average gain is 38 seats.

Many of those gains will be because of women. Women appear poised to vote for Democrats in record numbers this year, and many of the candidates themselves are women. The 116th Congress could have a record number of female legislators; at present, the historical high-water mark is the 107 women (84 in the House, 23 in the Senate) currently serving in the 115th Congress.

Our model agrees that it’s likely that a historic number of women will serve in the next Congress, but how many female legislators can we expect? Using gender data that we collected with Ballotpedia earlier this year, we identified 238 women from major parties (186 Democrats, 52 Republicans) running for the House. Then, using our House forecast, we compiled a list that’s impressive for its length: all the women favored to win a House seat this year.

A potentially record-breaking roster of women in the House Female candidates in 2018 House races with at least a 1 in 2 chance of winning, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast as of Oct. 24 Candidate District Party Incumbent? Female Opponent? Chance of Winning Ayanna Pressley MA-7 D 100.0% Frederica Wilson FL-24 D ✓ 100.0 Kathy Castor FL-14 D ✓ 100.0 Lois Frankel FL-21 D ✓ 100.0 Terri A. Sewell AL-7 D ✓ 100.0 Val Demings FL-10 D ✓ 100.0 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez NY-14 D >99.9 Sheila Jackson Lee TX-18 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Marcia L. Fudge OH-11 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Tulsi Gabbard HI-2 D ✓ >99.9 Diana DeGette CO-1 D ✓ >99.9 Anna G. Eshoo CA-18 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Pramila Jayapal WA-7 D ✓ >99.9 Jackie Speier CA-14 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Robin Kelly IL-2 D ✓ >99.9 Carolyn Maloney NY-12 D ✓ >99.9 Ilhan Omar MN-5 D ✓ >99.9 Joyce Beatty OH-3 D ✓ >99.9 Jan Schakowsky IL-9 D ✓ >99.9 Grace F. Napolitano CA-32 D ✓ >99.9 Zoe Lofgren CA-19 D ✓ >99.9 Nancy Pelosi CA-12 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Yvette Clarke NY-9 D ✓ >99.9 Brenda Lawrence MI-14 D ✓ >99.9 Maxine Waters CA-43 D ✓ >99.9 Karen Bass CA-37 D ✓ >99.9 Marcy Kaptur OH-9 D ✓ >99.9 Gwen Moore WI-4 D ✓ >99.9 Doris Matsui CA-6 D ✓ >99.9 Judy Chu CA-27 D ✓ >99.9 Nanette Barragan CA-44 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Nydia Velazquez NY-7 D ✓ >99.9 Rashida Tlaib MI-13 D >99.9 Norma J. Torres CA-35 D ✓ >99.9 Bonnie Watson Coleman NJ-12 D ✓ >99.9 Debbie Dingell MI-12 D ✓ >99.9 Katherine Clark MA-5 D ✓ >99.9 Linda T. Sanchez CA-38 D ✓ >99.9 Kay Granger TX-12 R ✓ ✓ >99.9 Alma Adams NC-12 D ✓ >99.9 Barbara Lee CA-13 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Susan A. Davis CA-53 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Mary Gay Scanlon PA-5 D ✓ >99.9 Veronica Escobar TX-16 D >99.9 Sylvia R. Garcia TX-29 D >99.9 Grace Meng NY-6 D ✓ >99.9 Eddie Bernice Johnson TX-30 D ✓ >99.9 Betty McCollum MN-4 D ✓ >99.9 Liz Cheney WY-1 R ✓ >99.9 Rosa DeLauro CT-3 D ✓ >99.9 Suzanne Bonamici OR-1 D ✓ >99.9 Dina Titus NV-1 D ✓ ✓ >99.9 Nita Lowey NY-17 D ✓ >99.9 Julia Brownley CA-26 D ✓ >99.9 Debbie Wasserman Schultz FL-23 D ✓ >99.9 Lucille Roybal-Allard CA-40 D ✓ >99.9 Cheri Bustos IL-17 D ✓ >99.9 Vicky Hartzler MO-4 R ✓ ✓ >99.9 Lori Trahan MA-3 D >99.9 Kathleen Rice NY-4 D ✓ >99.9 Suzan DelBene WA-1 D ✓ 99.9 Chellie Pingree ME-1 D ✓ 99.9 Madeleine Dean PA-4 D 99.9 Lisa Blunt Rochester DE-1 D ✓ 99.7 Annie Kuster NH-2 D ✓ 99.5 Chrissy Houlahan PA-6 D 98.8 Susan W. Brooks IN-5 R ✓ ✓ 98.7 Debra A. Haaland NM-1 D ✓ 98.1 Martha Roby AL-2 R ✓ ✓ 97.3 Jahana Hayes CT-5 D 96.9 Abby Finkenauer IA-1 D 96.6 Ann Kirkpatrick AZ-2 D ✓ 96.2 Virginia Foxx NC-5 R ✓ ✓ 95.5 Susan Ellis Wild PA-7 D 95.4 Jackie Walorski IN-2 R ✓ 95.4 Stephanie Murphy FL-7 D ✓ 94.3 Katie Arrington SC-1 R 90.0 Elise Stefanik NY-21 R ✓ ✓ 88.5 Jennifer T. Wexton VA-10 D ✓ 87.9 Carol Devine Miller WV-3 R 87.9 Ann Wagner MO-2 R ✓ 86.6 Mikie Sherrill NJ-11 D 84.8 Angie Craig MN-2 D 84.0 Donna Shalala FL-27 D ✓ 79.4 Haley Stevens MI-11 D ✓ 78.8 Sharice Davids KS-3 D 77.8 Karen Handel GA-6 R ✓ ✓ 76.9 Cathy McMorris Rodgers WA-5 R ✓ ✓ 76.7 Debbie Lesko AZ-8 R ✓ ✓ 75.9 Jaime Herrera Beutler WA-3 R ✓ ✓ 74.8 Katie Hill CA-25 D 71.8 Susie Lee NV-3 D 71.4 Katie Porter CA-45 D ✓ 64.4 Cindy Axne IA-3 D 61.3 Mia B. Love UT-4 R ✓ 59.5 Debbie Mucarsel-Powell FL-26 D 56.2 Yvette Herrell NM-2 R ✓ 54.7 Amy McGrath KY-6 D 52.3 Elissa Slotkin MI-8 D 50.9 Kim Schrier WA-8 D 50.0 Show more rows The races with a chance of winning at 100 percent are uncontested. Source: Ballotpedia

If every woman currently leading a district were to end up winning, there would be 100 women in the House, plus 24 in the Senate. That totals 124 women in Congress, which easily blows past the current count of 107.

But this kind of seat gain isn’t guaranteed. Women could gain dozens of seats — but they might also add only a handful. For example, say we limit our forecast data to women with 3 in 4 chances of winning or better; there would be only 115 women in the next Congress. That would still be a historic high, with 92 female representatives compared with 84, but it would mean no gains for women in the Senate and only eight more seats overall. On the other hand, let’s assume that every woman with at least a 1 in 4 chance ends up prevailing. In this more optimistic scenario for women, there could be 120 congresswomen and 26 female senators on Jan. 3, 2019. That total of 146 women would be a 36 percent increase over the current number — but it’s worth noting that, even under this scenario, Congress would still be nowhere near gender parity.

As my colleague Perry Bacon Jr. has written, progress in electing more women to Congress has come mostly on the Democratic side of the aisle. As you can see in the chart below, the number of Republican women in Congress has plateaued since the 1990s (when the first “Year of the Woman” in 1992 was also Democrat-fueled), while Democratic women have made steady gains even as the number of Democratic men has shrunk.

Our forecast suggests that trend will continue: Assuming all 100 forecast leaders win their House races, 83 of the next session’s congresswomen will be Democrats, compared with just 17 who will be Republicans. Currently, of the 84 total congresswomen, there are 61 Democrats and 23 Republicans; that means that the gain would be among Democratic women, while the number of Republican women would actually decrease. If our model is correct, the ratio of Democratic congresswomen to Republican congresswomen will the be highest it has ever been.





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