How the Women’s Wave Crashed

Year after year, more women were taking seats in Congress. The midterms changed that.

Photo by Lindsey LaMont on Unsplash

It’s no exaggeration to say that women saved Democrats in the midterms — and that’s largely because women were trying to save ourselves. In many states where abortion is at risk, women registered to vote in record numbers. Women were much more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than men. And while one (large) subset of women — white women without college degrees — voted GOP, a diverse swath of the American female population broke for Democrats: Black women overwhelmingly, Latinas strongly, young women hugely, and college-educated white women significantly.

And yet, despite this election being a referendum on women’s rights (the American people voted “for”), after several record-breaking elections, the women’s wave seems to have crested — at least for now.

Across every demographic group that voted in the midterms, there was a gender gap, with women being more likely than men to vote for Democrats, often by double digit margins. For example, according to preliminary exit poll data, 53% of Latino men voted for Democrats, compared with 66% of Latina women. Forty-five percent of single men voted for Democrats, compared with 68% of single women. Even the group of women least likely to support Democrats — white women without college degrees — were much more likely to vote blue than their male counterparts: while 37% of women without college degrees voted for Dems, just 26% of white men without college degrees did the same. For white women with college degrees, 56% voted for Democrats, compared to just 45% of similarly-educated white men.

But even with unexpected Democratic wins, and even with women turning out for Dems yet again, the number of women in elected office has plateaued.

One important exception here is governors races. While women have made big gains in congress and state legislatures in the last two decades, we have stubbornly lagged when it comes to being elected to executive roles. That shifted this year: a record number of women will be entering governor’s mansions this January.

That record number, though, is 12.

One dynamic gender and politics researchers have observed is that when it comes to women in elected office, there’s an artificial ceiling that seems to limit the number of women that can ascend to power to roughly 20-25 percent of any given political body.

That’s about the number American women have risen to — and stayed.

The record for the highest percentage of women in the US Senate was set in 2020. The record for the highest percentage of women in the House was set by the 2022 Congress. Congress in 2023 — that is, after these midterm elections — will likely be less female than Congress is today. 

That’s a big deal, because, until now, the number of women in Congress has been on a relatively steep incline. But look at this graphic from the Washington Post: Women get big jumps, then short plateaus, followed by more big jumps and short plateaus (some of these big bumps can be credited, in part, to Nancy Pelosi’s tenure):

The midterm results weren’t disastrous for women, but they were disappointing. One top line: Women are underrepresented across the board, and women of color are particularly underrepresented in the Senate. With the help of the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics, let’s break down the demographics of the 118th Congress compared to the general population (note: This data is not totally complete, because a few races remain outstanding):

• Men: I cannot yet find racial data on the men of the 118th congress. However, men generally make up about 49.5% of the US population. Yet they will make up 72% percent of the House and 76% of the Senate.

• Women: Women make up about 50.5% of the population. There will be 121 in the House (this number may increase slightly), which is roughly 28% of all seats. There will be likely be 24 women in the Senate, which is 24% of all seats.

• White women: White women make up about 38% of the US population. There will be at least 71 in the House (3 white women are competing in races that still haven’t been called), which is roughly 17% of all seats. There will be 21 white women in the Senate, which is 21% of all seats.

• Black women: Black women make up about 6.9% of the US population. There will be 27 Black women in the House, which is 6% of all seats — not bad! However, there are zero Black women in the Senate — which is very bad. And every single Black woman who will be in Congress in 2023 is a Democrat.

• Latinas: Latina women make up roughly 9.5% of the US population. There will be 18 Latinas in the House, which is 4% of all seats. There will be 1 Latina woman in the Senate, which is 1% of all seats.

• Asian women: Asian women make up roughly 3% of the US population. There are 8 Asian women in the House, which is just under 2% of seats. There are two Asian women in the Senate, which is 2% of seats.

The racial gap between Senate vs. House seats is an interesting (and telling) one, and gets even more extreme when you look at incoming governors:

• Men: 49.5% of the US population, 76% of governors.

• Women: 50.5% of the US population, 24% of governors.

• White women: 38% of the US population, 22% of governors.

• Black women: 6.9% of the US population, 0% of governors.

• Latinas: 9.5% of the US population, 2% of governors.

• Asian women: 3% of the US population, 0% of governors.

And of course I would be remiss to ignore the fact that women are 50.5% of the US population and make up zero percent of American presidents ever.

In other words: In other words: The more power is concentrated in any office, the more male those office-holders are — and the whiter they are.

Democrats have done a much better job than Republicans at running and electing women. People of color were actually overrepresented among Democratic candidates in primaries this year, at least compared to the general population. But of course the Democratic base is not a representative slice of the American population, and given the demographics of who votes for Democrats and who Democrats represent — and given that the GOP is overwhelmingly the party of white people, and particularly of older white people and men — it would be right and fair for Democrats in office to be much more racially diverse than the general population, and they most surely are not. And unfortunately, a lot of the primary candidates of color lost, leaving Dems to run candidates in the general that were 39% people of color — in a nation where 41% of the population is non-white.

I can’t find an exact gender tally of candidates, but what I am finding suggests that roughly 20-25% of general election candidates were women — less than half our actual share of the population.

Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect that every election be a record-setting one when it comes to representation along racial and gender lines. But when women and people of color are so radically underrepresented in higher office, despite the fact that women are a numerical majority of the public and have for years now been overrepresented in institutions of higher education, I’m not sure it is unreasonable to expect that our numbers would tick steadily up.

And while it was female voters who saved the Democratic Party this year, female candidates were largely sidelined, while much of the press coverage focused on men who frankly ran the kinds of campaigns you could never imagine a woman even trying. Would a Black woman with multiple children by multiple men, a violent history, and multiple personality disorder be a competitive Senate candidate in Georgia, or anywhere? Would a lumbering woman wearing cargo shorts whose dad paid her salary so she could be mayor of a small town and who had a stroke during her campaign have a shot? (I say that with no shade to John Fetterman, who I quite like and am pleased won, but let’s be real: In no universe would we see a female John Fetterman not get absolutely obliterated in the press and in the election).

We unfortunately still have a long way to go.

xx Jill