Will Reversal of Roe v. Wade Motivate More Women to Vote?

When the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) was launched 50 years ago, only 12 women were serving in the U.S. Congress. Today, there are 143.

While CAWP is a leading national resource in researching and analyzing those strides in women’s political participation, its scholars are quick to point out there is much left to do to reach political parity in the United States.

With the midterms fast approaching, Rutgers Today spoke with Debbie Walsh, CAWP director, and Kelly Dittmar, associate professor of political science at Rutgers University-Camden and director of research at the center, about the record number of women running in U.S. gubernatorial elections – and whether the debate over women’s reproductive rights will prove a mobilizing force for women candidates and women voters now and in the future.

“Women are less than one-third of officeholders in every level of office we study,” Walsh said. “We are eager to build upon our unique role in the struggle for women’s political equity and have great hope for what the world will look like in another 50 years.”

Will recent events, such as the reversal of Roe v. Wade, motivate more women to participate in public office and get more women voters to the polls?

Walsh: We are seeing clues that the Dobbs decision is activating women, but the decision itself came too late in the election cycle to have an impact on this cycle’s candidacies of women. In terms of candidacies, the question is will this carry over to the next two cycles?

What we are watching to see is what kind of an impact the Dobbs decision has for women as voters and whether this will be an issue that energizes women and reinforces once again that elections have consequences. Look at what happened in Kansas this summer. Clearly a very red state, and we saw a large turnout. We saw that after the 2016 presidential election – more women running, more women becoming activists, more women politically engaged.

Are more women candidates addressing abortion in their campaigns?

Dittmar: When we think about this issue, it is far less about persuasion in elections versus mobilization. This issue is going to be used to mobilize voters much more so than it is trying to appeal to any independent middle. Kansas is a great example of where you have a Democrat Governor, Laura Kelly, running for reelection who only wins if she gets Republican votes, so she is not talking about abortion. In Oregon, Christine Drazan is a Republican woman candidate for governor who isn’t going to campaign overtly for this issue because it will not win her the Democratic voters she needs to put her over the edge.

Are women candidates setting any records as they run for office in 2022?

Dittmar: In terms of the trends, 2018 and 2020 were record years for women as candidates, nominees and, ultimately, office holders. This year will be different in that we haven’t achieved record levels of women candidates and nominees across levels of office – with a significant exception being at the gubernatorial level. In 2022, a record number of women have run for and won nomination for governor (25 according to CAWP data). This is especially important because only nine women serve as governor, and 19 states have never elected a woman governor.

As we see key public policy debates and decisions shift from the federal to the state level, abortion among them, it’s as important as ever to have representation in the most powerful office at the state level, which in most states is governor. So, what we will be watching to see is whether that record level of candidacy and nomination translates into a record level of office holding.

Walsh: That record of nine was first set back in 2004. It’s gone down and come back up, but it’s never gone up past nine. So, it’s been a frustrating level of office to watch. This year there is the potential to break that record, as well as the possibility of electing the very first black woman as governor – Stacey Abrams in Georgia.

CAWP has been tracking women’s participation as candidates, nominees and office holders for 50 years. Is the watermark for female participation still 2018, or are you seeing data that suggests another surge is eminent in 2022?

Walsh: This is not a record year in terms of women’s candidacy, but I would not set off alarm bells that we haven’t broken more records this year. The race to women’s political equity is a marathon, not a sprint, and this is just one year in a long trend. This is the advantage we have being based at a university and studying this for the long haul. We want to see how this moment fits in over time.

Dittmar: So much of CAWP’s attention to this is the numbers and where we are in terms of candidates and office holders. But a lot of what we are working to do, and have been for 50 years, is to integrate and facilitate the empowerment of women in politics, which can take a number of forms – women running and women voting and women as activists and donors. Our work will continue to look broadly at women’s political power in this context. Women are increasing political power in a lot of different ways. We have to ensure that continues and that we don’t set aside the conversation of women’s political power just because we reach a certain percentage of those holding office.