The Year of the Woman continues.
Congress already has more female representation than ever before, with a total of 107 women in the House and Senate. And, with a record number of women running for office, that number could continue to rise come November.
According to a new race-by-race analysis by NBC News, there could be more than 100 women elected to the House in November—for the first time ever. To compare, there are currently only 84 women in the House, meaning more than 30 new women are expected to be elected.
But the skyrocketing female representation is only true of one side of the aisle: the number of Republican women in the House is set to drop. The House currently comprises 61 female Democrats and 23 female Republicans. NBC predicts that that distribution will change come November, with female Democrats potentially increasing their representation by a third and female Republicans shrinking by as much as a third.
While female Democrats have defeated their male counterparts in a number of high-profile primaries, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Ayanna Pressley in Massachusetts, female Republicans have not performed as well. Of the 23 Republican women in the House, four are running for another office, two are retiring, and three are at ‘severe risk’ of losing re-election. NBC calculates that there are only three states that might add Republican women to their ranks: New Mexico, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
