Money, networks and bias: Why women struggle to win seats in US politics

Around 51% of the population of the United States is female, but that is not reflected in the make-up of the US Congress, where only 28.4% of the members are women . Nevertheless, with 152 women in total sitting in the House of Representatives and Senate, the number is higher than it has ever been in the history of the United States. The number of female governors of the 50 US states is also currently higher than ever before: Some 14 of them — 28% — are women.

There are a number of reasons why there are still comparatively few female representatives in the US Congress. "Some of them are structural: There are rules and processes in place in our political system that make it harder for any newcomers to break in," says Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University. "Historically, women were newcomers."

Seats in the Senate only come up for election every six years. Members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms, but there is no limit to the number of times they can stand for reelection, so in theory they can stay in office for decades.

Also, as Dittmar points out, election campaigns in the US are very expensive. Women have historically been less able to access networks of rich donors — who, like many party leaders, are still most likely to be men. Leading male politicians are also more likely to recruit men to stand as new candidates. Finally, cultural biases also play a role: "Stereotypes and expectations about what women can and should do."

The elections on November 3 will decide whether more or fewer women will sit in the US Congress over the next two years. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate are up for election in the midterms. And in 36 states, the citizens will also decide who will move in to the governor's villa.

125 of the 435 representatives in the House are women. As in the Senate, and also with the gubernatorial posts, they are not evenly distributed between the two parties: There are more women among the Democrats than among the Republicans. At present, there are 95 women sitting as representatives for the Democrats, and 30 for the Republicans.

"There is a far less robust support infrastructure for women within the Republican Party," says Dittmar. She comments that organizations that specifically recruit, train, and fund women candidates are almost all either on the Democrat side, or non-partisan. Besides, she adds, "A lot of the [Republican] party leaders don't see an electoral incentive or pressure" to recruit more women. Diversity is more important to Democrat voters, who place greater value on seeing women among their elected representatives.

The Republicans currently have a majority in the House of Representatives, which means that they also get to appoint the Speaker or majority leader. At the moment, the position is held by Mike Johnson. Only one woman has held this powerful post to date: Nancy Pelosi, who was the Democrats' Speaker from 2007 to 2011, and again from 2019 to 2023.