FiveThirtyEight
Meredith Conroy

Is 2020 The Year Of The Woman … For The GOP?

After trailing Democratic women for several cycles now, the number of Republican women running for office shot up in 2020 (so did Democrats’, but the gap between the parties shrank). As we saw in 2018, Democratic women, fueled at least in part by anger at Trump’s election, ran in record numbers, and also won in record numbers. Are Republican women on track to make similar gains in 2020? Probably not. As Nathaniel and I wrote earlier this year, Republican women didn’t fare as well as Democratic women in their primaries, and the most of the Republican women who did win will be running in tough races. As we reported, most Republican women won primaries that set them up to compete for safe Democratic seats, with fewer running for competitive seats and even fewer running for safe Republican seats. So they likely won’t be improving much on their current numbers, but they should make some gains. We will be tracking these races where the Republican party nominated a woman to see if more GOP women will be seated in Congress in 2021.
Which Republican women are winning?

Chances of winning for Republican women candidates running for House or Senate seats in 2020, according to our final forecast

Candidate Incumbent District Chances Proj. to win?
Kat Cammack FL-3 98%
Cathy McMorris Rodgers WA-5 98
Jackie Walorski IN-2 97
Elise Stefanik NY-21 95
Cindy Hyde-Smith Senate 88
Jaime Herrera Beutler WA-3 82
Michelle Fischbach MN-7 81
Ann Wagner MO-2 69
Lauren Boebert CO-3 61
Joni Ernst Senate 58
Beth Van Duyne TX-24 52
Victoria Spartz IN-5 50
Stephanie Bice OK-5 49
Yvette Herrell NM-2 45
Nicole Malliotakis NY-11 42
Susan Collins Senate 41
Nancy Mace SC-1 36
Michelle Steel CA-48 32
Claudia Tenney NY-22 27
Karen Handel GA-6 26
Young Kim CA-39 26
Martha McSally Senate 22
Maria Elvira Salazar FL-27 19
Genevieve Collins TX32 16
Jeanne Ives IL-6 13
Ashley Hinson IA-1 13
Tiffany Shedd AZ-1 12
Mariannette Miller-Meeks IA-2 12
Sandy Smith NC-1 6
Chele Farley NY-18 4
Amy Ryan Courser OR-5 4
Esther Joy King IL-17 4
Rosemary Becchi NJ-11 3
Lisa Scheller PA-7 3
Erin Cruz CA-36 3
Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez TX-15 3
Anna Paulina Luna FL-13 2
Amanda Adkins KS-3 2
Christina Hagan OH-13 2
Tamika Hamilton CA-3 2
Kathy Barnette PA-4 1

Excludes races where the Republican candidate has either a 99 in 100 chance of winning.

Kaleigh Rogers

Where QAnon-Associated Candidates Could Win

There’s been a fair amount of talk this election season about QAnon, something that didn’t even exist four years ago. QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory whose adherents believe there is a global child sex trafficking ring run by Satan-worshipping elites, and only Trump can stop it. If that sounds unbelievable, you’re going to be stunned by the number of candidates on the ballot who have at some point expressed support of the conspiracy theory, including a few who might win tonight.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican running in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, has tweeted “#GreatAwakening” to Alex Jones, called Q “a patriot” and even hosted videos detailing the “evidence” she believes proves Q is “the real deal.” More recently, though, she’s distanced herself from QAnon. Greene’s opponent dropped out of the race, though his name is still on the ballot, so our forecast gives her very high odds of winning the seat.

Two other Republicans — Lauren Boebert, who’s running in Colorado’s 3rd District, and Burgess Owens, who is running in Utah’s 4th District — have also made comments suggesting a belief in the QAnon conspiracy, though they too have walked back those statements. They’re in tighter races than Greene, so it will be worth watching whether they can pull it off. There are a number of other candidates for U.S. House and Senate around the country, including 17 other Republican nominees, who have made comments sympathetic to QAnon, but our forecast doesn’t give those candidates much of a shot. There won’t be a QAnon caucus in Congress just yet, but being associated with the conspiracy clearly hasn’t disqualified any candidates from landing on the ticket.

Nathaniel Rakich

The 6 Ballot Measures We’re Watching Super Closely

Some of the most interesting elections of 2020 don’t even have any candidates. There are 121 statewide ballot measures being decided today, such as:

  • Proposition 22 in California, which will decide whether Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc. drivers and delivery people are independent contractors or employees entitled to legal protections. (Those companies have spent $200 million to ensure it’s the former.)
  • Ballot Measure 2 in Alaska, which would implement the nation’s first top-four primary (where the top four vote-getters advance, regardless of party) and ranked-choice voting in the general election. (Massachusetts, via Question 2, is also voting on whether to adopt ranked-choice voting.)
  • Amendment #1 in Virginia, which would set up a bipartisan redistricting commission.
  • Proposition 115 in Colorado, which would ban abortions after 22 weeks.
  • Five ballot measures across four states (Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota) that would legalize recreational marijuana.
  • And a non-binding statehood referendum in Puerto Rico.

And that’s just scratching the surface; you can read about the other interesting ballot measures we’re watching here.


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