August 15, 2023

CAWP's News & Notes will take a brief summer vacation and will return on September 12th. We hope you enjoy the last weeks of summer — we'll be back soon with all the latest information on women and politics as we head into off-year elections in 2023.

Primary elections were held last week in Mississippi, and CAWP is tracking results for women candidates in these races. Among the most notable results for women:

• Incumbent Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) – who is currently the only woman holding statewide elective executive office in Mississippi – won the Republican nomination for re-election in November. She will be challenged by Democratic nominee Greta Martin (D) in a woman v. woman general election contest.
• Addie Lee Green (D) won the Democratic nomination for treasurer. She will challenge incumbent State Treasurer David McRae (R) in November. If successful, Green would be the first Black woman elected statewide in Mississippi.
• With some contests still too close to call or advancing to the runoff election on August 29, women are already 12 of 59 (20.3%) major-party nominees for state Senate and 21 of 123 (17.1%) major-party nominees for the state House in Mississippi. Women are not poised to break records for total major-party nominations for either chamber in 2023.
• Mississippi ranks 48th in the nation for women’s state legislative representation. Given the results of the primary election, it is unlikely that the state will see an increase in the number of women serving. 

For more information, see the full analysis of how women fared in last week’s contests, including updates on races that are too close to call, on our Election Analysis page. Complete context about women in the 2023 elections can be found on CAWP's Election Watch.

Writing in Forbes, CAWP Scholar and Director of Research Kelly Dittmar talks about our recently-released resources that look at women’s representation in state legislatures in new ways. These resources examine women’s representation within party caucuses and compare the share of state legislative seats held by women of different races and ethnicities to their share of the population. “These data shed light on alternative, and arguably more accurate, ways to assess how well diverse communities of women are represented… in state legislatures,” writes Dittmar, “and remind us that legislative representation is not a guarantee of legislative power.” Read the full piece, “How We Measure Women’s Representation Matters” on the Forbes website.

New Research from CAWP Grant Recipients

Two research briefs from scholars supported by our CAWP Research Grants examine the unique challenges that women of intersectional backgrounds face when running for or serving in office.

In Public Opinion Toward Black Women Political Elites, Sydney L. Carr investigates whether Black women leaders’ dual race-gender identity creates additional disadvantages in terms of public perception compared to their counterparts in other race-gender groups. This research points to the necessity for political practitioners to consider how historical stereotypes persist as obstacles for politicians from marginalized, intersecting identities.

Researchers Dan Qi and Cana Kim study how voters respond to Asian American women candidates in The Effects of Gender and Race in Asian American Women’s Political Campaigns. This study reveals areas of advantage for Asian American women on various measures of candidate evaluation, demonstrating the importance of research that looks at the multiple identities that women candidates bring to elections. At the same time, the findings suggest that white women may have access to a wider range of presentation strategies. 

Learn more about CAWP Research Grants, and the 2020 and 2021 grantee cohorts, at the CAWP Grants page.