Carol Marin writes a pretty good column today on gender’s effect upon getting elected–the key paragraph to me is:
And just Tuesday, Thomas B. Edsall’s New York Times column pointed to what he called “disturbing” Democratic numbers. “In the 42 top-tier ‘Red to Blue’ races selected by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for intensive financing and support, 25 of the candidates were male and 17 were female,” wrote Edsall. “In those contests, male candidates batted .800: 20 victories to five defeats. The women faced higher barriers: three won and 14 lost, batting .176.”
My question is more related to what races these women got into–I’m guessing that they were able to get in the primary when fewer men were wanting to get in the race–IOW, less favorable districts. There is a fair degree of evidence that women do best in State Legislatures when the pay is lower because men, because of wage disparity, have to give up more. In cases where the District is harder win in or perceived that way, fewer men maybe willing to run the risk if there is a connection between the two.
There’s also the question of the current political environment, and whether or not the rise of war & security concerns makes it harder for women to win. Conventional wisdom is that “a male challenger can’t beat a female incumbent”, but that happened four times: CT-2, PA-4, NY-19, and KY-3, despite the fact that Democratic voters are majority female. So I think this speaks to the unique character of the ’06 elections, and/or the return of more male voters to the Democratic coalition.
Women candidates also do better in multi-seat races than in single-seat races.