Marsha Blackburn made history in 2018 when she became the first woman elected to the U.S. Now, she’s poised to make history again and become the state’s first woman governor in its 230-year history. Blackburn’s anticipated victory is a bright spot for the Republican Party amid predictions of a blue wave on Tuesday.
Her candidacy comes as women continue to make strides in representation: More women were on state and federal ballots this cycle, with a record number running for the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). But while 19 Democratic women are their party’s gubernatorial nominees, Republicans have just seven.
House seats, 203 are Democrats, versus 76 Republicans, according to CAWP. And those who are in Congress also experience the gender disparity: 42 percent of Democrats in the 119th Congress are women, compared with only 15 percent of Republicans, according to the CAWP data. So why are there fewer Republican women in office?
Experts say that at every stage of the process — from recruitment to fundraising to campaigning to governing — these women face unique challenges, roadblocks and obstacles. They are running in a party that says it doesn’t care about gender identity and attempting to attract voters who are less likely to see women as viable leaders. Jennifer Lim, co-founder and executive director of Republican Women for Progress, said she’s been working to develop a pipeline for Republican women who want to run for office.
In the past decade, Lim said, the grassroots policy organization has helped thousands of women at the local, state and federal level through one-on-one assistance and an annual one-day training. Lim said her organization has helped women across the Republican spectrum — from those who considered themselves moderates and opted to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election to some who worked at the White House during President Donald Trump’s first administration. But, she said, there are far fewer training programs and organizations geared explicitly toward preparing Republican women to run for election.
That means fewer run for state and local office — and hence fewer have the experience, networks and qualifications to run for higher federal office. Amanda Hunter, the former executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation who oversaw research on women running for office, said voters often have a stubborn “imagination barrier” when it comes to picturing a woman in an elected position that a woman has never held before. And if they don’t, they’re judged,” Hunter said.
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