• Run like a woman. In 2008, following the prevailing wisdom, Mrs. Clinton downplayed her gender. Candidates today are embracing it. Kids roam the campaign trail. Some candidates breast-feed in their ads. And veterans, like Arizona’s Martha McSally, tout their barrier-breaking service.

• Making a #MeToo connection. In ads and speeches, candidates turned their own sexual abuse into an opportunity to relate to voters. Mary Barzee Flores, in Florida, tells voters about being groped by the night manager of a Pizza Hut as a teenager. Katie Porter, in California, has talked about surviving domestic abuse.

• Gender matters, even when all the candidates are women. There are 33 races where women are running against other women. Gender has been a factor in those races, too. And a reminder that women don’t vote as a monolithic block. “Gender is a dynamic whether or not the bodies are all female,” says Ms. Dittmar.

• Forget about parity. At the end of all this, women are still likely to be underrepresented. Even if all the female congressional candidates won (an almost impossible proposition), women would still make up less than half of the House and less than a third of the Senate.

Now, a question for our readers: Has the wave of female candidates impacted you personally? Perhaps changed your outlook on politics, or even spurred you to get involved? We’d love to hear from you! Let us know who you are, and how it has affected you, at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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Kavanaugh in context

The story around the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett M. Kavanaugh seems to be evolving all the time. So we chatted with Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The Times, to get a sense of how things have changed.

On Politics: I remember hearing you say on The Daily a couple weeks ago that “short of some astounding revelation,” no one in the Senate would change their mind on Judge Kavanaugh. I imagine this qualifies as astounding?