Women and "Hopeless" Congressional Candidacies

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which women were nominated by the major parties to run for the House of Representatives in contests they had little chance of winning. The findings indicate that between 1916 and 1978, a larger proportion of women than men was nominated for "hopeless" contests, but the difference, while significant at times, is not as great as might be expected. Republican women fared better than Democratic women during the first 50 years, but that pattern was recently reversed. Nevertheless, Democrats were not much better off in the 1970s than they were in the 1930s, and Republicans were decidedly worse off. A steady increase in the number of women nominated for House seats suggests that the number of women Representatives will grow, in spite of continued gender-related differences in the nominating process.

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