Ahead of the midterm elections, Samantha Pettey analyzes open seats and the competitive races of this cycle to determine the potential gender makeup of the 118th House of Representatives and predicts that 129 women could win seats. She also takes a close look at how abortion is (or isn’t) playing a role in toss-up races where women are on the ballot

Pettey, Samantha

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The 2022 Midterms: Why this may beanother record setting election forwomen in the House of RepresentativesAhead of the midterm elections, Samantha Pettey analyzes open seats andthe competitive races of this cycle to determine the potential gender makeup of the 118thHouse of Representatives and predicts that 129 women could win seats. She also takesa close look at how abortion is (or isn’t) playing a role in toss-up races where women areon the ballot. Looking ahead to elections across the US in 2022, our mini-series, ‘The 2022midterms‘, explores aspects of elections at the presidential, Senate, House ofRepresentative and state levels, and also reflects on what the results will mean forUS politics moving forward. If you are interested in contributing, please contact RobLedger (ledger@em.uni-frankfurt.de) or Peter Finn (finn@kingston.ac.uk).In a midterm election year that should, by historical standards, be favorable towardsRepublican candidates, there are a couple questions toconsider. First, is this a promising year for women togain ground in the Republican Party? Secondly, howdoes abortion play a role? With the recent overturningof Roe v Wade by the US Supreme Court, abortionappears to be a key voting issue in this election cycle. Thisenvironment appears favorable to Democrats sincePage 1 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022public opinion polls find majority support for abortion to belegal and Kansas voters recently upheld protections forabortion.Representation of women in Congress nowThe current proportion of women in Congress is at a historic high, with women holding27.5 percent of seats. In the House of Representatives there are 123 women, and theymake up 28.3 percent of the total delegation. About 74 percent, or 91, of those womenare Democrats, and 26 percent of women in Congress are Republicans. While bothparties in the House have the highest number of women ever, the GOP more thandoubled the number of women they had in the 116th Congress (2019-2021) from 13 to 32in the 117th Congress.A descriptive look at the candidates this year, by party, shows a similar picture to thepast. Democrats are largely outpacing Republican women in running candidates foroffice. In total, there are 180 Democratic women candidates and 86 Republican women.The large share of women candidates that are Democrats is reflected in the partisanbreakdown of women incumbents. There is a smaller gap, although still a gap, betweenthe number of Democratic (33) and Republican (15) women running in open seats.Research finds open seats are a place where women can gradually increase theirnumbers in office.Similar to past prediction pieces I’ve written here, I use candidate gender data from TheCenter for American Women and Politics and FiveThirtyEight’s Deluxe forecast model. Ialso use FiveThirtyEight’s predicted model as of October 6th. The Deluxe forecast modelhas predictions for each race based on variables such as, polls, fundraising, candidatequality, expert ratings, etc. The model reports a candidate’s likelihood of winning interms of 100 simulated races. For my analysis I operationalize `likely to win’ as acandidate who has at least a 40 in 100 chance of winning.Figure 1 below shows the predicted success rates for both parties. Democratic andRepublican women are expected to win races at similar rates, with Democrats predictedto win about 53 percent of their races and Republicans predicted to win about 49Page 2 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022percent. A significant percent of these races includes incumbents who are expected towin reelection. This analysis suggests 96 percent of Democratic and Republican womenare likely to win reelection.Figure 1 – Overall Prediction, by PartyFigure 2 shows the number of candidates, by party, who are likely to win as challengersand in open seats. Democrats are predicted to win an additional 21 seats whileRepublicans are predicted to win about 14 seats.Figure 2 – Number of Expected Winners: Open seats and Challengers, by PartyPage 3 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Women versus women racesAdding the raw numbers of winners above to make a prediction for the 118th Congressfails to acknowledge the number of women versus women races. Given I operationalizelikely to win as more than 40 percent chance, both women in competitive, close racesagainst other appear in the raw numbers from Figure 2. In this election cycle, there are34 women versus women races, or about eight percent of the total. But most of theseseats are not competitive.Page 4 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022United States House of Representatives or Office of the Speaker of the House, Public domain, viaWikimedia CommonsTo analyze the competitive seats, I use the Cook Political Report, which designates 30races as “toss-up” this year, or a race in which either party has a good chance ofwinning. In other words, it’s their classification of the 30 most competitive races in theHouse. In this election cycle, there are 25 women running in these toss up seats, makingwomen present in many of these races. And, tying this back to the figure above todetermine a potential number of women in the 118th Congress, in 16 candidates (or eightseats) are women running against other women in competitive seats where both areoperationalized as likely to win.For example, Alaska has one House seat, a toss-up, in which voters will use a newlyenacted Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) system to pick a winner. There are fourcandidates on the ballot and two are women. The seat just held a special election (andprimary) and elected Democrat Mary Peltola, who now has incumbency status, for thegeneral election. Also on the ballot, and running as a Republican, is former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Palin placed second after the second round in thestate’s RCV system.Page 5 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022Is abortion a key issue in these women versus women toss-up races?A quick glance at recent headlines leads one to think abortion is a key issue in thiselection cycle and perhaps one that could help Democrats win key races around thecounty. So how might the recent Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022)decision might be playing a role in women versus women toss-up races? I examined theeight women versus women races that Cook Political Report lists as Toss-ups. Givenabortion is an important issue nationally for voters, examining policy stances on abortion,especially on the GOP side given the narratives cited above, can shed more light onpredictions for the toss-up races.Using each candidate’s official website, I examined the content to determine whether thecandidates are signaling a position on abortion. For some candidates, positions areclearly mentioned on their “Issues” or “Policies” tabs. Others, largely incumbents, featuresmall media releases about votes they supported.Overall, 56 percent, or nine of the 16 candidates (four Democrats and five Republicans)have some mention of reproductive health which specifically and clearly signals theirposition on abortion. On the flip side, 44 percent, or seven of the 16 candidates (fourDemocrats and three Republicans) do not mention abortion at all on their websites. Thesample here is clearly small, but the candidates seem to be signaling each other— if oneof the candidates has a transparent stance, it’s more likely their competition has one,too. For example, in five of the eight races, both candidates either have a positionreported or none. This leaves only three races in which one candidate in the race stakesa position and the other does not. Further, in a similar analysis of women running in thetoss-up races against males, six out of ten (two Democrats and four Republicans)included stances on reproductive health and two candidates prominently featured theissue on their homepage (one Democrat and one Republican).While many Republicans in close races are removing information from their websitesabout abortion, these toss-up races with women running, especially the women versuswomen races, do not align with this finding. Contrary to the previous reports,Republicans in this sample are not `toning down’ their pro-life positions, at least relativeto the extent their Democratic counterparts are emphasizing their position on abortion.Most Republican women in these races signal a clear pro-life position, in which life startsPage 6 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022at conception. For example, Sarah Palin’s official site lists “Life” amongst her top issuesand signals clear support to ensure abortion is not codified at the federal level. Incomparison, Mary Peltola’s official website also offers a position on abortion under theissue “Choice” in which she signals the desire to federally codify abortion. Yet, Peltola’swebsite never uses the word abortion, and the framing is more around choice andreproductive health. This is likely because Peltola was the first Democrat to win astatewide election in Alaska since 2008 and therefore Peltola’s framing around the issueof abortion is likely a good strategic move. Especially given FiveThirtyEight classifiesAlaska as a state that has a +14.6 Republican partisan lean.In Colorado’s 8th, which is a new district apportioned to the state determined after thepopulation increase in the 2020 census, candidates Yadira Caraveo (D) and BarbaraKirkmeyer (R) do not have any language on their sites about abortion. A comparison ofColorado (+6.4 Democratic lean) and Alaska (+14.6 R lean) is interesting since bothstate governments protect the right to abortion. In Colorado, the governor signed “TheReproductive Health Equity Act”, which creates a legal right to abortion. And in Alaska,abortion is protected by the state’s constitution. Alaska and Colorado have some of themost liberal policies on abortion in the country. So, in two (essentially) open seat raceswith states that protect abortion, the candidates are choosing different strategies. InAlaska, both candidates signal a clearly defined position but the candidates in Coloradohave no positions about abortion on their websites.Abortion is not the focus of many women candidatesThe biggest takeaway from this closer look at the women versus women races is thatdespite the national narrative and public opinion polls, abortion is not a prominent issuefor any of these candidates. While the issue is present and visible in just over half thecandidate’s websites, abortion is not a `headline’ issue on any of the official websites.For each site in the women versus women toss-ups that reported a stance, theinformation was on corresponding tabs, and not the landing page. This analysis has itslimitations, as I have not considered campaign ads or any other information a candidatemakes public. But I argue that if a candidate has total control over the message they givevoters via their website, this is a good signal as to what the candidates are likelyfocusing on in other areas of their campaign.Page 7 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022For a year in which federal precedent on access to abortion changed drastically afterdecades, and Democratic voters are being urged to vote with this issue in mind, abortionin the competitive toss-up races does not appear to be playing a prominent role. Myanalysis suggests the 118th Congress will break records for women, but with a smallgain, rather than the larger ones we saw in 2018 and 2020. Given the forecast modelsdiscussed here, and considering the eight women versus women races, I think we couldsee 129 women winning seats up from 123, or close to about 30 percent of the totalHouse delegation.Please read our comments policy before commenting.Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP –American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics. Shortened URL for this post: https://bit.ly/3yTYVRGPage 8 of 8Permalink: undefinedDate originally posted: undefinedDate PDF generated: 14/11/2022

The 2022 midterms: why this may be another record setting election for women in the House of Representatives

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The 2022 midterms: why this may be another record setting election for women in the House of Representatives

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