More women running for office and sharing their stories in the Trump era
When Gretchen Whitmer became the Democratic leader of the Michigan state senate in 2010, she found that there were more men named John (five) in the 38-member body than women (four).
Whitmer, 46, recalled that fact at a two-day San Francisco conference and candidate training session hosted this weekend by Emily’s List — the 32-year-old organization that supports Democratic, abortion-rights female candidates across the country. But Whitmer and the other 100 female candidates in town for the training see signs that those gender disparities could slowly be changing.
In the entire 2015-16 election cycle, 920 women contacted Emily’s List to express interest in running for office. Since President Trump was inaugurated in January, nearly 19,000 have reached out to the organization, which distributed $90 million to candidates in the last election cycle.
Emily’s List has expanded its staff by 20 percent and will be supporting congressional candidates in more midterm races than ever, including several nationally watched battles in California. Not all of those women will be running for office next year, said Stephanie Schriock, the organization’s president. But she hopes to help build a farm team of future female office holders for a Democratic Party that has lost more than 1,000 state and local seats over the past decade.
full: http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/More-women-running-for-office-and-sharing-their-12278578.php
= new reply since forum marked as read
