Reprinted with permission from Shareblue.
Trump’s odious nature and personal brand of racism, sexism, and xenophobia has encouraged thousands of women to run for office around the country. However, Trump and Republicans have little reason to celebrate.
“The number of Republican women in the House is actually poised to decline,” says NBC News, noting that Democrats would be primarily responsible for the vast majority of women in Congress, including most of the 30 and 40 new women are on track to enter Congress next year.
Even with a decline in the number of Republican women in Congress, NBC News says more than 100 women could be in Congress in 2019, which would be a new record.
NBC notes that the number of women running is “clearly a backlash to President Donald Trump’s election.”
Yeah, no kidding. Earlier this year, Republican operatives were actively advising Republican women not to run in 2018 because of Trump.
His scandals, including allegations he committed a felony by paying hush money to former mistress Stormy Daniels, are pushing women voters away from Republicans, and Democratic women are stepping up to the plate.
Trump’s toxic nature, especially with women, was evident in a recent poll showing a “staggering 43-point gender gap” between women and men who disapprove of Trump, with 62 percent of women disapproving.
Republican women in Congress, which was not a large number to start, could see their ranks culled by a third. There are currently 23 Republican women in the House, according to NBC, and four have jumped ship to run for another office.
Several others are facing an uphill struggle in November.
The only woman in Republican leadership, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (WA), had a brutal primary night in early August. After the results came in, a local paper called the night “a thrashing,” and noted, “Donald Trump is now officially hanging around the necks of Republicans.”
In California, Congresswoman Mimi Walters represents a district Hillary Clinton carried in 2016, but has decided to cast her fate with Trump as she faces stiff opposition from law professor Katie Porter.
Walters has supported the Trump agenda 99 percent of the time in Congress, and has repeatedly defended Trump.
Even Trump’s defense of Nazis in the deadly Charlottesville riots, which left one innocent woman dead, could not dissuade Walters. A few months after the incident, Walters defended Trump, saying, “He’s the president of our party. He stands for what we stand for.”
NBC noted women in Virginia and New York also face tough re-election battles.
If Republicans lose a third of the women in their caucus, as few as 15 GOP women might be in next year’s Congress. Depending on the outcome of elections, it could mean that 87 percent of Congressional Republicans are white men, says NBC. To put that in perspective, only white men make up only 31 percent of America.
Or to put it in terms of Trump, there is a good chance that 2019 will see more women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment — 22 — than Republican women in Congress.
Published with permission of The American Independent.
