The Open Seat Conundrum: Women in Congressional Primaries

• In Event: Women and Political Parties

Abstract

In 2018, women's representation in Congress reached an all time high of 20.6% ("CAWP" 2019). But the United States has a long way to go to reach gender parity. The US is ranked 99th globally for female representation—lower than every other industrialized nation. This is a conundrum, since a great deal of research on American politics has concluded that women are just as likely as men to win general elections when they run. These two notions are strikingly contradictory. If women are as likely to win general elections, why do women have such low representation in office? We argue that the answer lies in the primaries. The primaries introduce obstacles in the path of women running for office. In this paper, we analyze an original dataset of congressional primary races from 1970-2018 to identify the degree to which these elections limit women candidates’ access to the general election ballot. Our analysis shows that women running for Congress do draw challengers at higher rates than similarly situated men. However, we find that the biggest impediment to gender parity in Congress is that women are less likely to get nominated for open seat elections. We discuss the implications of these findings, including best practices for party leaders interested in pursuing policies that improve the representation of women.

Author

• Rebecca D. Gill, University of Nevada, Las Vegas