And many women became active in response to President Trump, who was elected with the largest gender gap on record.

“The trigger for so much of this starting is still sitting in the White House and will continue to speak, and say things that will continue to outrage,” said Debbie Walsh, the director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “This will keep people engaged and thinking they have to keep fighting and take the big prize, which is the White House and the Senate.”

There is also outrage about votes not being counted in states like Georgia and Florida. Many of the women who won this year did so in districts where they will have to fight to hang on in two years. And there are multiple women eyeing a run for president in 2020 — all of which can help keep women’s eyes on the prize.

“People do see it as just, Nov. 6, women got elected in historic numbers — and then it’s done,” said Nikema Williams, a Democratic state senator in Georgia. “But it’s not actually done because now we have all these women we’ve engaged who are now paying attention.”

For Republicans the challenge is steeper; polls have shown women shifting their party identification to the Democrats by wide margins, and at least one analysis of exit polls showed that women of all education levels moved toward the Democrats on Election Day — even working-class white women who helped elect Mr. Trump. But women on both sides say that reaching gender parity in state houses and Congress requires electing more Republicans as well as Democrats.

“At the rate we’re going, it’s still going to take us 100 years to get to parity,” said Jennifer Nassour, the former head of the Republican Party in Massachusetts.