| WASHINGTON, DC –In case you missed it, CNN featured an article today highlighting how the path back to the Majority rests on the backs of GOP women. Republicans need only five seats to flip the House, and women are running in many of the most competitive districts. Read the full article here.
CNN:’We have to build off that success’: GOP hopes women lead the party back to House majority
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/politics/republican-women-house-2022-races/index.html
For House Republicans, their path back to power could rest on the backs of GOP women.
After a historic number of Republican women were elected to the House in 2020 — including in some of the most competitive races in the country — the party sees a recipe for electoral success and is now doubling down on that same strategy in the battle for the House next year.
What has emerged among party leaders, operatives and outside groups is a two-pronged approach: retain their current Republican women in critical swing seats and recruit additional strong female candidates to run in key battleground districts that they hope to flip next year.
And so far, there are signs of that strategy bearing out: A record-breaking number of Republican women have already filed to run for office, while some of the GOP’s top fundraisers this year have been freshmen Republican women.
“There are several roads to taking back the House, but I think one road contains a lot of Republican women on it,” said freshman Rep. Young Kim, a California Republican who flipped a blue seat in Orange County last year. “Without a doubt, getting more GOP women elected to join the Republican conference is critically important.”
Republicans — who have history and redistricting on their side — only need to flip five seats to seize back the House. And party operatives can point to at least six competitive races where female GOP candidates have already decided to jump in, meaning Republicans could theoretically win back the majority with women alone and add to their historic ranks.
But that would mean holding on to every single female incumbent, which will be no easy feat. The GOP women who were responsible for flipping 11 out of 15 seats last cycle will be locked in some of the toughest — and most expensive — contests in the country, and Democrats are determined to take them on.
“Republican women are now our not-so-secret, secret weapon,” said Olivia Perez-Cubas, spokeswoman for Winning for Women, a super PAC dedicated solely to electing GOP women. “And in order to keep winning — and it’s all about electoral success at the end of the day — then we need to find and support qualified women.”
Targeting top recruits
While Republicans are still lagging behind their Democratic counterparts in closing the gender gap, there was a real attitude and cultural shift inside the GOP after their female ranks were nearly decimated in 2018.
Now, after Republicans experienced their own “Year of the Woman” in 2020, a record-breaking number of female candidates have been inspired — and in some cases, directly recruited — to run for office. So far, 155 Republican women have filed to run, compared to 60 at this point in 2019 — a new record for the party.
“We got started last cycle. We had some success. Now we have to build off that success,” Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told reporters at a recent briefing. “I anticipate that we’re going to set a new record this time, just like we did last time, because we’re going to continue to add to the talent pool of women that we’ve attracted to the House.”
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Read the full article here. |
