Women's chances of winning House races better than men's

March 2, 1999
Contact: Ann Marie Deer Owens,
(615) 322-2706
[email protected]

Women's chances of winning House races better than men's, study suggests

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Gender is clearly no longer a liability for women considering a run for Congress, according to Rosalyn Cooperman, a Vanderbilt University doctoral student in political science who is researching the competitiveness of women candidates in the House of Representatives.

"That parties can now expect to win seats with women candidates provides an important incentive for Republicans and Democrats to recruit women to run for the House," Cooperman said. "Women candidates in the 1990s are finally running on par with the men."

She said that prior to 1992, the political parties could expect to run worse with female candidates. Frequently, women ran in races where the party had little hope of winning the seat. However, both parties can now expect to run as well or better with women candidates as with male candidates.
1992 became known as the "year of the woman" because it was the first year in which a substantial number of women ran for national office. Cooperman analyzed the results from contested House races in 1992, 1994 and 1996. She found that the parties tended to improve their vote share in districts where women candidates ran, although it was marginal in the 1994 midterm elections.

In all three House elections, women Democrats generally outperformed Republican males when incumbency and district partisanship were taken into consideration. Women Republicans won more votes than male Democrats in 1994 and 1996. Taken together, these results suggest that gender may be an asset to women candidates when they run against men.

Cooperman said that her research heightens the importance of political parties in recruiting strong women candidates to run in open seats and against vulnerable incumbents of the opposing party.
"Democrats have done a slightly better job of attracting women candidates for the House, although both parties could do much to step up their recruiting efforts," she said. Cooperman pointed out that Republican efforts to recruit women candidates are important for the party's future because women Democrat representatives outnumber Republican women members.

"Recruiting more women candidates to run for the House may help diminish the gender gap among voters," Cooperman said. "Since women candidates tend to attract more crossover votes than men, the Republicans may be able to reclaim some of the women's vote with female candidates. Clearly, the Republican Party has more to gain than lose by recruiting women candidates."

Previous research by Cooperman and Bruce Oppenheimer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, focused on a gender gap within the House in terms of representation of women on committees and positions of leadership. They found that while the number of women in the House of Representatives had more than doubled in the last decade, almost all of the increase was among the Democrats.

"The significance of the gender gap in the House took on greater meaning following the 1994 election when the Republican Party won control of the House," Cooperman said. Since the majority controls the agenda and chairs every committee and subcommittee, the influence of women House members necessarily suffered."

She said that political parties and their leadership should realize that it is in their best interest to place a higher priority on recruiting women candidates for Congress. "Outside groups must continue to play an active role in recruiting, training and funding women candidates," she said.
Cooperman, who presented these findings at a political science conference in Nov. 1998, is researching the results of the most recent House election for her dissertation.

For more news about Vanderbilt, visit the News and Public Affairs home page on the Internet at www.vanderbilt.edu/News/

-VU-