WOMEN’S ELECTORAL SUCCESS IN THE GOP

WOMEN’S ELECTORAL SUCCESS IN THE GOP
 
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WOMEN’S ELECTORAL SUCCESS IN THE GOP
The need to have institutions that reflect gender balance is not a novel idea in global politics. Gender equality in representation correlates with higher economic development and decreased gender-based violence (Falk & Hemle 2-12). Hence, a country like the US that aspires to perpetuate its hegemony must eliminate all avenues that may hinder women’s representation in all of its institutions. Consequently, jettisoning male dominance of political parties should feature at the top of the list since political parties serve as stepping stones for political leadership (EIGE 3).  Compared to the Democratic Party, the Republican party in the US tends to be so male-dominated, which reflects in its lower percentage of women’s representation in both houses (Pattey para. 1).  While the GOP has always fared poorly among women voters and women running for office using their ticket, this phenomenon changed in the 2020 elections. By first explaining GOP’s underperformance in the past, this essay discusses the possible reasons that might have led to the record-breaking Republican women’s representation in the 2020 elections.
Generally, women relate more to left-wing political ideologies, explaining why the Republican party does not attract more women, voters and candidates. According to Verge and Keith (2, 2014), left-leaning parties have women-friendly policies, hence, higher women representation in the legislature across Europe. In the US, this assertion is not an exception since the Democratic party has a higher women representation in both senate and the House of Representatives. This is primarily because they advance female-oriented policy decisions such as abortion, subsidized childcare, education and healthcare (Barnes and Cassese, 134). However, jdkljd disputes the correlation between women-friendly policies with the decision to support a political party or its candidate. He evidences this assertion using the 2016 elections where Hillary Clinton failed among women voters despite being a woman and upholding women-friendly policies. Hence, an explanation for women’s under-representation in the GOP must entail reasons besides gender identity and policy identity.
Some of the suggested explanations include women’s dearth in occupations that serve as gateways into politics (Thomsen & King 989). They argue that this scarcity of female representatives in occupations with high affinity to politics such as law leads to a reduced pool of candidates in elective positions. However, this explanation is true for both the Democratic party and the Republican party. According to Barnes and Cassese (136, 2017), the lack of policy coherence between female and male GOP members explains why the Republican party fairs poorly among women. For instance, females have different opinions on the subject of taxing the rich and gun controls. On the other hand, the success of democrats among women electorates can be traced from Democrats men and women holding similar views on numerous issues, which increases the chances of women vying for seats on the democratic ticket. However, this phenomenon changed with the 2020 elections as the Republican party recorded its highest ever women representation in Congress. The reasons for this change are explained below.
First, the Trump factor propelled more GOP women into elective positions. According to Thomsen (314, 2015), women tend to avoid the GOP because they are ideologically moderates instead of the Republican preferences for ideological extremism.  However, in the 2020 elections, strong support for Donald Trump was all it took to be perceived as an extremist and be considered for elective positions in the Republican Party.  As a result, any Republican candidate who demonstrated their support for Trump would have easily won elections. This is evidenced by the fact that all of the seventeen women elected representatives to the house were either endorsed by Trump or strongly supported Trump’s building a wall on the Mexican border (Bade para. 6). Hence, it is doubtful that the GOP members and its policies became friendlier to women, allowing more women to be elected. Thus, it can be assumed that the GOP women candidates elected to the House of Representatives were likely more defenders of President Trump than their male counterparts. Therefore, winning elections.  For instance, Marjorie Taylor, whose strong support of the QANON myth, a platform identified by the Trump campaign, helped secure her victory to representatives’ house (Strauss, para. 2). Therefore, GOP women’s success in 2020 elections does not evidence an ideological shift of its members or likely women candidates.
Secondly, the GOP’s embrace of identity politics in the Trump era. The Democratic party is widely perceived as embracing identity politics (Raufu 1). However, with Trump’s leadership of the Republican party, GOP utilized identity politics to help more women secure seats in the house. A look at the Republican elected women in 2020 elections evidences a desire to appease interest groups away from typical Republican voting blocs or candidates. For instance, Michel Park Steel, the Republican representative for California’s 48th congressional district, came to America as a migrant from South Korea. While Nicole Milliotakis is a Cuban immigrant and Nancy Mace was raped at 16 (Bade 1-20). Candidates with such characteristics tend to be associated with the Democratic Party. However, in 2020, Republicans utilized these groups to win elections for their candidates. Trump himself had used identity politics and won elections in 2016 by packaging himself as a defender of white privileges (Raufu, 3). Consequently, exploiting the same strategy helped GOP women candidates to secure victory in the 2020 elections.
Thirdly, the shift in Republican’s recruitment and support for women candidates. In the 2016 elections, the male-dominated Republican party experienced their lowest moment in terms of gender equality. This is because 10 of the 13 GOP-elected women lost their seats. Hence, in the 2020 elections, they made closing the gender gap in the house a priority (Och & Shames, 3-43). Using groups such as E-PAC and Winning For Women, the GOP managed to front a record number of women for elective seats, consequently increasing the number of Republican elected women (Zanona & Mutnick 14-16). These groups helped female GOP candidates financially and logistically to mount a challenge for their respective seats. Hence, the GOP’s dismal performance in the 2016 elections served as inspiration for their success in the 2020 elections.  Zanona and Mutnick (18-24, 2020) also argue that officials of the Republican party have realized the electability of women candidates is planning to obtain a majority in both houses by fronting more women. Therefore, it can be argued that women’s success in the GOP is merely for the party’s image and not as a proponent for women’s issues.
Also, the high number of GOP-elected women in the 2020 elections was due to the national trend favouring women from both sides of the political divide. The record-breaking number of women in the house of representatives was not only a Republican affair but also a Democrat’s achievement. According to Pettey (para. 3, 2020), the Republican party recorded their highest ever women representation at 29, besting their previous record of 23. On the other hand, the Democratic party registered their highest ever female representation in Congress at 89, outmatching their previous record of 88. Coupled with that, America had its first woman elected vice president in Kamala Harris, a democrat. However, GOP’s record is a phenomenon because, of the 13 incumbent Democratic party candidates who lost their seats, 10 Republican women were responsible for them (Bades para. 8). According to Pepinsky and Pierskalla (3, 2017), it is harder for new candidates to win against incumbents. Hence, while there was a general rise in the number of elected women in the US House of Representatives, the Republican’s record is worth mention.
In conclusion, the equal political representation of all genders is a minimum for all aspiring democracies. Therefore, political parties which provide the platform for women aspiring candidates should re-strategize to attract more women to vie on their tickets. This includes ridding political parties of male domination, promoting women-friendly policy decisions, and supporting women candidates in elections by financing their campaigns. As evidenced above, The US Democratic Party has made significant strides in ensuring women’s participation in politics. In contrast, the Republican party lagged towards this aim in past elections. However, in the 2020 elections, they changed their strategies by capitalizing on the Trumpian effect to spiral women candidates, utilizing identity politics, shifting their recruitment and support strategies to be more women-oriented and finally, eclipsing the country’s trend by focusing on dethroning the Democratic party incumbents. While notable the achievement, more has to be done to increase the representation of women in the Republican party to give the American public the confidence that no matter what party takes over government running, the gains realized over the years on women’s rights shall not be reversed.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bibliography
Bade, Rachel . “GOP women’s record breaking success reflects party’s  major shift on recruiting and supporting female candidates.” 2020 -https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-republicans-women-election/2020/12/07/0563e418-367c-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html
Barnes, Tiffany D., and Erin C. Cassese. “American party women: A look at the gender gap within parties.” Political Research Quarterly 70, no. 1 (2017): 127-141.
Barnes, Tiffany D., Regina P. Branton, and Erin C. Cassese. “A reexamination of women’s electoral success in open seat elections: The conditioning effect of electoral competition.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 38, no. 3 (2017): 298-317.
Dettman, Sebastian, Thomas B. Pepinsky, and Jan H. Pierskalla. “Incumbency advantage and candidate characteristics in open-list proportional representation systems: Evidence from Indonesia.” Electoral Studies 48 (2017): 111-120.
EIGE. “Gender equality in political decision making”. 2016: 1-4
Falk, Armin, and Johannes Hermle. “Relationship of gender differences in preferences to economic development and gender equality.” Science 362, no. 6412 (2018).
Pettey, Samantha. “What happened?: in 2020, women continued to make strides in representation in Congress and State legislature. 2020: para. 1-5 -https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2021/01/18/what-happened-in-2020-women-continued-to-make-strides-in-representation-in-congress-and-state-legislatures/
Raufu, Abiodun. “Book Review: White identity politics (Cambridge studies in public opinion and political psychology).” Journal of Black Studies 51, no. 2 (2020): 194-198.
Thomsen, Danielle M. “Why so few (Republican) women? Explaining the partisan imbalance of women in the US Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 40, no. 2 (2015): 295-323.
Thomsen, Danielle M., and Aaron S. King. “Women’s Representation and the Gendered Pipeline to Power.” American Political Science Review 114, no. 4 (2020): 989-1000.
Verge, Tània, and Dan Keith. “Left parties and women’s representation in Europe.” In ECPR General Conference, Glasgow, 3-6 September 2014 Section “he Functioning of Representative Democracy: Processes Linking Citizens and the State’’; Panel ‘Whose Preferences Count? Unequal Democracy in Comparative Perspective, pp. 1-25. 2014.
Zanona, Melanie and Mutnic, Ally. “Recruitment push fuels record number of women in House GOP”. (2020): Para.

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