Intense and intentional training is helping Democratic women gain state lawmaking seats

Kimberly Pope Adams was an auditor working in Virginia when she got a call from a Democratic state Senator who had heard Adams was interested in running for office.

Sen. Danica Roem encouraged Adams to attend a six-month training program with the state’s chapter of Emerge, a national group focusing on preparing Democratic women to run for office. Adams said the training was detailed, covering campaign finance, communications, media and overall strategy.

“It just made us all better women, better candidates after going through it,” she said of her cohort. “I learned such granular information.”

Adams lost that first election by just 53 votes following a recount. She’s seeking the competitive seat again this November.

“Intentionality has paid off for Democratic women candidates,” said Debbie Walsh, director of The Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The relative lack of similar efforts is showing for their Republican counterparts. The center recently found that Democratic women are now nearly equal in number to Democratic men in state legislatures, up from the 34.1% they comprised in 2016. But women only make up 21.3% of all Republicans in state legislatures, a statistic that experts say is the result of a systemic failure to invest in female candidates.

Many advocates for women’s representation say it’s important that women’s voices are present during policy discussions. Democrats tend to agree, believing representation from a variety of demographics and viewpoints is valuable to leadership. Republicans tend to believe the best candidate will rise to the top whoever that may be, Walsh said.

This year, women as a whole comprise just over 33% of state lawmakers in the US. The number is far from the 50% they represent in the general population, but 10 years ago the number was 24.5%, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.

Much of that increase can be attributed to the organized and intentional effort among Democrats and their allies to recruit and train women to run for public office. Outraged at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential loss and then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric, scores of Democratic women ran and won elections in the following nine years.

Women have benefited from that targeted education on campaigning. From fundraising and child care to dealing with the way voters perceive their literal appearance and, increasingly, concerns about safety and security, women have historically faced unique challenges in running for office.

Democratic women in office multiply

A slew of organizations are dedicated to recruiting and electing Democratic and progressive women. They include political action committees that endorse and contribute to candidates as well as educational programs, like Emerge, that teach women campaigning basics. Many are state-based and have partnerships or affiliations with larger national organizations. Some also focus on encouraging women of color and LGBTQ+ candidates to run. Others rally behind certain causes, such as abortion access.

Emily’s List, founded 40 years ago, is one of the most famous of these organizations. The group claims to have raised nearly $950 million in the pursuit of electing women and claims to have helped over 1,600 women achieve state and local offices. Emerge, on the other hand, does not make endorsements. The group founded in 2002 is particularly focused on electing Democratic women to state legislatures and claims to have trained over 6,500 women, with around 1,200 currently serving in office. It has branches in 27 states.

Alums have applauded the network of political power created by these groups.

“I call them my sisters because we still keep in touch,” Adams said.

The increase over the past 10 years driven by Democratic women has resulted in gender parity in three state legislatures this year for the first time — Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.

Republican women lag behind in numbers

Women have only increased as a percentage of all state GOP lawmakers by 4 percentage points since 2016. Walsh said Republican women who are serving in office have spoken about the need for electing more women like them.

“But the party as a whole doesn’t prioritize that,” Walsh said.

Even leaders of nonpartisan groups that support women running for office note that the women who sign up skew Democratic.

Patricia Russo, executive director of The Campaign School at Yale University, said she constantly works to find Republican women to attend the nonpartisan program that trains future candidates and campaign managers.

“There are very few training programs out there that prepare Republican women for the level of intensity of either running a political campaign or running as a candidate,” Russo said. “There’s no parity there.”

Some organizations focus on Republican and conservative women’s leadership in government and politics across the U.S., but they don’t have the same resources or scope as groups that focus on Democratic women.

Republican Women for Progress grew out of Republican Women for Hillary in 2016. The group that endorsed Nikki Haley in the 2024 election has struggled to find an inroad with the MAGA Republican party of today because of a reluctance towards identity politics, executive director Jennifer Pierotti Lim said.

“It’s hard if you’re a Republican woman to talk about this,” she said about the disparity in opportunity. “The party doesn’t look at it kindly.”

The group that tends to attract more moderate Republican women partners closely with The Campaign School at Yale to send Republican women to the program. The group sets up mentorships and hosts virtual information sessions specifically for Republicans.

Pierotti Lim challenged the closely held Republican belief that the most qualified candidate will succeed, and factors like race and gender do not matter.

“If that worked, we would be much closer to gender parity in elected office right now,” she said. “There’d be more Republican women in leadership.”

Virginia Del. Amanda Batten, chair of the House of Delegates Republican caucus, said she would like to see the state party bring back Republican women leadership programming like one she attended years ago, to plant the idea of running in women’s minds. Batten, who represents a competitive district that includes Williamsburg, said she knows women from that program who decided to run for office years later, herself included.

“There was an opportunity that came up and they thought, ‘I do understand the process. I know what it looks like. I know I’m gonna have the resources and the support that I need and I’m going to go for it,'” Batten said.

__

The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.