November 22, 2022

This Thanksgiving, we are giving thanks for the resilience of American democracy and the progress made in the 2022 midterms. We wish all of you a restful and peaceful Thanksgiving holiday.

The 2022 midterms proved to be another exciting year for women in American politics. Here are just a few of the milestones from election 2022:

• There will be a record 12 women serving as governor in 2023, beating a record of 9 that has stood since 2004.
• Vermont elected its first woman to Congress, Becca Balint (D). Vermont was the last remaining state that had never sent a woman to Congress.
• The first openly lesbian governors in the United States were elected in Massachusetts, Maura Healey (D), and in Oregon, Tina Kotek (D).
• Arkansas, Massachusetts, and New York elected their first women governors (Sarah Huckabee Sanders [R], Maura Healey [D], and Kathy Hochul [D], respectively). Massachusetts and New York previously had a woman serve as governor through succession.
• Alabama elected its first woman senator (Katie Britt [R]). Two women have previously served as senators from Alabama via appointment.
• Colorado, Illinois, and Oregon elected their first Latinas to Congress (Yadira Caraveo [D]; Delia Ramirez [D]; and Lori Chavez-DeRemer [R] and Andrea Salinas [D], respectively).
• Pennsylvania elected its first Black woman to Congress, Summer Lee (D).
• A record 27 Black women will serve in Congress, beating the previous record of 26 (first set in 2021). All 27 women will serve in the House and all are Democrats. Zero Black women currently serve in the Senate.
•  A record 19 (14D, 5R) Latinas will serve in Congress, beating the previous record of 15 (set in 2022); 18 (13D, 5R) will serve in the House and 1 (1D) will serve in the Senate.

Get the numbers for all the women elected in the midterms at our 2022 Election Results Tracker and find more milestones and additional context at our Results for Women Congressional and Statewide Executive Candidates in Election 2022 post.

CAWP is dedicated to chronicling women’s place in American politics and expanding their access to power. Join us in that work. CAWP is now hiring for the following positions:

Research Project Assistant The research project assistant will join CAWP’s peerless data team that tracks women as candidates and officeholders. This position will also assist in the expansion of our data services work, including widening the scope of current data projects as well as growing new areas of data collection, such as additional levels of office for elected officeholders and expanded candidate coverage. This expansion will allow CAWP to provide new measures of women’s political participation in the United States and provide a backbone of data to bolster research and scholarship in the field of women’s political participation.

Program Coordinator The program coordinator works collaboratively to innovate and drive the development, implementation, and evaluation of a range of public programs, special projects, and outreach efforts — like our Ready to Run® and NEW Leadership® programs. This position is responsible for expanding our target audience, providing focused/appropriate educational opportunities, and developing relationships and managing partnerships with outside organizations to provide joint programs.

Learn more and submit applications here and here.

We are thrilled to announce that Quest Diagnostics has made a generous contribution to CAWP’s Ready to Run® non-partisan campaign training program. “We are enormously grateful to Quest Diagnostics for supporting Ready to Run®,” said CAWP Associate Director Jean Sinzdak, “Quest’s gift will help us engage more women as future public leaders, crucial in a moment when we all look towards building a better future and strengthening our democracy.” The gift from Quest will help fund resources that prepare women from all political parties to campaign for political office and deepen their political engagement. Quest’s Chief Human Resources Officer Cecilia McKenney told the Rutgers University Foundation, “We’re pleased to be able to help women get the needed resources to aspire to hold elected office in this great state.” Learn more about Quest’s contribution to Ready to Run®, as well as their other ongoing support for Rutgers University, here. Learn more about our flagship program, Ready to Run® New Jersey, and register to attend the upcoming March 17-18, 2023 session here.

The academic journal, Politics & Gender, which counts CAWP scholars Kira Sanbonmatsu and Kelly Dittmar among its associate editors, has launched a new feature, “Notes from the Field.” This new series will “report on recent developments related to women, gender, and politics in the U.S. and around the world.” These pieces should be relatively short, around 2,000 words, and the series seeks to create exchange across theory and practice. Read the first article in the “Notes from the Field” series, “Blessing in Disguise? How the Gendered Division of Labor in Political Science Helped Achieved Gender Parity in the Chilean Constitutional Assembly” here and learn more about the series and how to submit work here.