MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Women are making gains in elected office in the U.S. Despite the failure of Vice President Harris to become the first woman president, a record number of women will hold seats next year in state legislatures. That's according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, which says that about a third of all state legislators next year - more than 2,400 - will be women. Kelly Dittmar is the group's director of research, and she's here with us to tell us more about this. Good morning.
KELLY DITTMAR: Good morning.
MARTIN: So since the center started keeping track of this in 1971, the number of state lawmakers who are women has quintupled. This year, that number has increased by at least 40. There are still a couple of races still to be called. As we said, that will be a record, but it's still not parity. I mean, women are half the population. So, Kelly, how do you look at this number?
DITTMAR: Look, women will see an increase in representation, as you mentioned. That's positive progress in any year. We want to see those gains. But women will be about a third of state legislators, and so that's still underrepresentation. In this year in particular, the number of women candidates and nominees was down from 2022. Part of that may be there were just fewer opportunities. Also, it wasn't a big year, a wave year for Democrats. That's usually a sign that women won't fare as well because women are much more likely to be Democratic candidates and nominees.
MARTIN: I was going to ask you about that. About two-thirds of women in state legislatures are Democrats. About a third are Republicans. Any theory about why that is?
DITTMAR: I think most notably is that you see targeted efforts more often on the Democratic side, a kind of willingness to recognize that the playing field is and has been unlevel for women and efforts to try to promote women's political representation. There's also more pressure on the Democratic Party from their voters, who, again, are majority women, who will say, we need to see better representation by gender, by race, et cetera.
MARTIN: I want to talk about policy, though. I mean, what difference do you think it makes to have women lawmakers on matters of policy?
DITTMAR: Yeah. Look, women are over 50% of the population, and it matters not just symbolically but that they also make a difference in policy priorities. They change the conversation due to differences in lived experiences and perspectives. So we have great evidence that women do make a difference, and they make a difference on shaping policy agendas and outcomes as well as shaping the institutions that they're in - right? - changing these very male, very white-dominated spaces into spaces that might be more inclusive and be attentive to voices that haven't always been heard in political institutions.
MARTIN: So now I'm wondering about whether this translates to the national stage. Women will have a majority in a Statehouse in Nevada. There are two other states where women will have parity in the Statehouses. But I have to mention that Nevada went for Trump over Harris. I'm just wondering why you think that might be.
DITTMAR: Yeah, I think we have to remember that voters are looking at different levels of office in different ways, and they're not voting on the basis of gender, right? So folks aren't voting for women in Nevada or elsewhere simply because they're women. At the end of the day, voters are going to vote on policy. And this year, we saw a lot of voters make a shift and say, you know, they didn't like what was happening in the current Democratic administration but even downballot.
MARTIN: Kelly Dittmar is director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics. That's part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Kelly Dittmar, thanks so much for joining us.
DITTMAR: Thank you.
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