With Election Day now two weeks behind us, many of the unresolved down-ballot races are wrapping up this week. And while many would look no further than President-elect Joe Biden’s decisive victory over President Donald Trump and conclude that “Democrats won,” one could convincingly argue that the presidential race’s result was more a repudiation of Trump than it was a mandate for Democrats. What is far less arguable, however, is this firm fact: Some of the biggest winners of this election were Republican women and minorities.
It’s true that Republican women didn’t make any net gains in the Senate this year, but it shouldn’t go unstated that Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Susan Collins of Maine won huge victories by defending their endangered seats — and by much larger margins than most were anticipating. And although Arizona’s GOP Sen. Martha McSally lost her bid for reelection, Wyoming elected its first female senator, Cynthia Lummis — so the balance of Republican women in the upper chamber remains even.
But it’s in the House of Representatives that this victory can be most clearly seen. In an election year where Democrats were largely expected to increase their total number of seats — continuing the “blue wave” of 2018 — they’ve picked up only three seats (two of which were basically handed to them after court-ordered redistricting in North Carolina) and lost 11 (so far). They will hang on to their majority, but only barely.
And of the 11 Democratic seats that Republicans have so far flipped this year, every single one was won by a woman and/or person of color.
Reps.-elect Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Michelle Fischbach of Minnesota scored decisive victories in their districts — along with South Carolina’s Rep.-elect Nancy Mace, the first woman to graduate from The Citadel. But Mace is far from the only “first” in this election: Rep.-elect Yvette Herrell of New Mexico will be the first GOP Native American woman in Congress, Reps.-elect Young Kim and Michelle Steel of California will be two of the first Korean American women ever elected to Congress, and Rep.-elect Stephanie Bice of Oklahoma will be the first Iranian American — of either sex — to serve in Congress.
Of the 11 Democratic seats that Republicans have so far flipped this year, every single one was won by a woman and/or person of color.
Rounding out the list of GOP seat flippers are Reps.-elect Nicole Malliotakis of New York, Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, and Carlos Giménez of Florida — who will all add to the ranks of Cuban Americans in Congress — as well as Rep.-elect Burgess Owens here in Utah. Owens and Rep.-elect Byron Donalds of Florida, along with Tony Gonzales of Texas and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina (who each won open seats vacated by Republicans) will be the next Black, Hispanic, and paraplegic Republicans in Congress, respectively.
There’s even talk of Malliotakis leading an anti-socialism “squad” of women and minorities, including Salazar, Giménez, and Indiana’s GOP Rep.-elect Victoria Spartz (a Ukrainian immigrant who grew up in the Soviet SSR), to oppose that of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow progressives.
Much of the credit for this huge movement can go to a surprising figure in the Republican Party: Rep. Elise Stefanik, an under-the-radar congresswoman from upstate New York. Stefanik has for years decried the “crisis level for GOP women” in Congress and launched a political action committee called Elevate-PAC, or E-PAC, which recruits and supports Republican women running for office — both in general elections and, most crucially, during primaries.
Its efforts paid off. All of the aforementioned female representatives-elect were supported by E-PAC; altogether, Stefanik’s candidates won a whopping 16 of their races — so far. New York’s Claudia Tenney and Iowa’s Mariannette Miller-Meeks currently lead in uncalled races, and if their leads hold, they will be the 17th and 18th E-PAC candidates to win seats.
Numbers like that are hard to ignore — and assuming GOP leadership doesn’t bury its head in the sand, so too will be Stefanik. Trends like these indicate she’ll be a major power player in Republican campaigning moving forward, and party leaders would be foolish not to give her first pick in recruiting candidates to keep up Republican momentum and take back the House in 2022.
The Atlantic’s Russell Berman put it this way: “What makes Stefanik so formidable, and such a potential threat to Democrats in the future, is that she has managed to ... (succeed) where (Trump) has failed, by bolstering the GOP’s appeal to the constituency — women — that he has repelled. ... If Stefanik’s political formula pans out in the years ahead, it’s a distinction she’ll surely embrace.”
With Trump and his rhetoric on their way out, Stefanik and her allies now have even more room to make their appeal — meaning the surge of GOP women and minorities has only just begun.