Primaries Push More Women Into General Elections, but Most Fresh Faces Now Belong to Republican Party

The Washington Post
Anne E. Kornblut
September 15, 2010

Democrats used to own the field of women running for higher office. Not anymore.

Nearly two years after an anticipated gender bounce - with predictions that women in both parties would rush into politics inspired by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin - it turns out that the momentum is on the Republican side. If there is a Palin effect, it is not being matched by any Clinton effect at the other end of the ideological spectrum.

Primaries this week accelerated the shift. Two high-profile Senate races, in Delaware and New Hampshire, yielded female Republican nominees. That makes a total of five Republican women nominated for Senate this cycle. Excluding incumbent senators, Democrats have nominated four, and one of them was Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, who already lost.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said it is "very fair" to argue that the energy for female candidates is trending Republican, a view several other Democratic strategists shared.

"I've been struck by it," said Dee Dee Myers, a former White House press secretary and author of "Why Women Should Rule the World."

"All the momentum is on the tea party side, so why wouldn't it also be with the women on the tea party side?"

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