The Hill- For the upcoming 2018 midterm elections in the United States, the number of females running for office is at an all time high. As of right now, there are over 400 females rynning for a spot in the House of Representatives. Of those females, 332 are candidates of the Democratic party and 108 are candidates of the Republican party. In the US Senate, over 50 females will be running, with 32 representing the Democratic party and 22 representing the Republican party. To put the historic increase of female candidates running into perspective, one can look at the number of people involved in ‘She Should Run’, a group that works relentlessly for the goal of getting females to run for office, whether that be for the Republican or Democratic party. During the election in 2016, about 100 people joined per month; fast forward to 2018, where there are over 17,000 people involved in their organization. A big goal for them would be to increase the number of female Republicans running for office. While there naturally may always be more females running in the Democratic party than the Republican one, there are still frustrations that not enough conservative women are running. Some current Republican congresswomen are even blaming President Trump for this disparity. The Republican female representative from Florida, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has announced she will not pursue re-election, and states that Trump has turned she and many other wome away by his comments. “Just stop with the name calling,” she told CNN. “It turns women off. It turns a lot of people off, but especially young women. They just say this is ugly.” To get more young women, especially Republicans, to run, President Trump may want to try being more careful with his words. While I am among the many that believe it’s fantastic that females are running at a historic rate, we have a long ways to go before there’s true success.
