In the News
October 28, 2024
This article by Marita Vlachou was published in the Manchester Mirror in October 2024 and features RepresentWomen's 2024 Gender Parity Index. It covers how women candidates in Michigan have made historic gains in recent years, but any hopes for a women-majority legislature still remain blocked.
Read an excerpt below.
In Michigan, voters made history in 2018 by electing women to all three statewide offices — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, all Democrats. All three were re-elected in 2022, when colleagues also chose Democrat Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids to be the state’s first female Senate Majority Leader.
Michigan is closer than most states to achieving gender parity, an analysis from the group RepresentWomen found. Across state, federal and local offices, Michigan ranked third in the nation for highest gender parity for women in elected office in RepresentWomen’s latest report, which periodically tracks gender representation among U.S. officeholders.
About 40% of Michigan lawmakers serving this session are women: 15 of 38 senators are women, while there are 44 women, one nonbinary member and 65 men in the House.
Of the 219 major party state legislative candidates running in Michigan’s 2024 general election, 36.5% are women, and major party women candidates are on the ticket in 61% of state legislative races, a Bridge Michigan analysis found. Women candidates are representing both major parties in 13 districts.
It would take 17 more women to reach a majority-female legislature across both chambers and seven to achieve that goal in the House, the only chamber up for election this year. Either outcome is unlikely in the 2024 cycle, observers say.
Read the full article here.
