An unprecedented surge of women, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is on the midterm ballot, and most of them are Democrats. | Michael Swensen/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool Elections Wave of Democratic women could reshape party agenda

The surge in female candidates this year is poised to remake the face of Congress — whether or not there’s a so-called blue wave on Election Day. In this year’s primaries, Democrats nominated 198 women for Congress overall, while Republicans nominated 59.

But new data shared exclusively with POLITICO by The Primaries Project at Brookings also suggests the influx of new female members could significantly alter how the Democratic Party shapes its message and sets its policy agenda.


The record-breaking number of Democratic women who sought their party’s nomination won primaries at a higher rate than their Republican counterparts. In House primaries without an incumbent, Democratic women faced off against male candidates in 147 races and were victorious in 101 of those races.

By contrast, only 51 Republican primaries featured such a match-up, and Republican women won only 17 of those races. The end result? An unprecedented surge of women on the midterm ballot, most of them Democrats.

Data compiled by Brookings researchers Elaine Karmarck and Alex Podkul suggests that gender is a key divide not just between the parties — witness the wide gender gap in the polls this year — but within them as well. The project catalogued every primary nationwide, tracked which issues candidates mentioned and what positions they held.

In the 2018 Democratic primaries, female candidates were more likely than their male counterparts to mention abortion, federal education policy, same-sex marriage and gun control as campaign issues.

However, the data reveal essentially no gender divides on the underlying policy positions candidates took on these issues — a result that Karmarck says is consistent with existing research.

“On abortion, it may be that Democratic men and Democratic women have the same position and end up taking the same votes” said Karmarck, “but the greater salience of that issue to women means that it may come up further up on the agenda, with more attention paid to it.”

That agenda-setting effect is likely to be felt in the next Congress.

“Women in Congress see a difference in the perspective that women bring into the institution,” said Kira Sanbonmatsu, a professor of political science at Rutgers University who interviewed, with her coauthors, most of the women who served in the 114th Congress for their recent book, “A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen’s Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters.” “There’s no single way to represent women, but women in office see a disproportionate responsibility to articulate issues important to women.”

Democratic women might also be using these issues strategically to distinguish themselves in crowded primary fields — a dynamic that could play a central role in the upcoming 2020 Democratic primary, which could include several women candidates running in a crowded field of men.

Morning Score newsletter Your guide to the permanent campaign — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“To the extent that female candidates hope to mobilize female voters in their primaries as a way of potentially defeating male opponents, that may be a good way to signal common cause with the issues that female voters care about,” said Danny Hayes, a professor at George Washington University.

Democratic men running for office, on the other hand, were more than twice as likely than Democratic women to mention the deficit or national debt — an issue that more frequently surfaced in Republican primaries.

There was little evidence of a gender divide among Democrats on other issues — health care reform was the most commonly mentioned issue for men and women alike, with 8 in 10 candidates citing it in their campaigns.

In Republican primaries, women candidates were much more likely to mention federal education policy than their male counterparts. But there was again little evidence of a gender divide on their underlying positions: Republican men and women across the board called for less federal intervention and more local control of schools.

According to Kamarck, the Republican Party’s growing weakness among women voters appears more directly tied to the president’s personal behavior.

“With Trump and women, it goes way beyond policy, and that’s why you see some evidence of Republican women moving over to vote Democratic,” said Karmarck. “It’s more who he is and how he conducts himself has proved to be anathema to a lot of American women.”

Exit polls commissioned by Brookings suggest that women voting in the Republican primaries were more likely than Republican men to say they’d want someone other than President Trump to be the Republican nominee in 2020. They were also more likely to break with the president’s positions on immigration and foreign policy.