Can the House Democrats Get to Gender Parity in 2025?

Outgoing Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) (center) with
Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA)

Last night, the state of Virginia held its primaries.  The biggest story of the night was what was happening to Rep. Bob Good, who appears to (after being heavily attacked by both former President Donald Trump and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy) have become the first House incumbent to lose to a non-incumbent in a primary this cycle (Rep. Jerry Carl lost in Alabama, but that was due to redistricting to a fellow House Republican).  This could've been our article today, but with Good not officially losing (and honestly, this being such a messy primary to begin with), I feel more inclined to discuss something a bit more intriguing out of last night-two primaries for open Democratic seats.  Reps. Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton are leaving the 7th and 10th districts, respectively, at the end of this term.  Spanberger is the heavy favorite to be the Democratic nominee for Governor next year, and rather than risk an open seat, is choosing to retire instead.  Wexton is suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, and is retiring due to these health issues.  Both women are in their third term, and both have a second thing in common as of last night: if the Democrats hold their seats, they will both be replaced by men.  In the 7th, fomer US National Security Council advisor (and key figure in the first Trump impeachment trials) Eugene Vindman won the nomination, while in the 10th, State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam won a splintered field.  Both men start as favorites (Subramanyam as a heavy favorite) to hold these seats, which President Biden won in 2020 and would be expected to win again in 2024.  But they also beg the question-will Democrats increase their number of female members in the 119th House?

Women definitely ran in these seats, it should be noted.  Vindman's monetary advantage in the 7th was insane.  Money isn't everything in politics-just ask David Trone-but his institutional support as well made him impossible to beat, and he bested State Rep. Elizabeth Guzman (his nearest competitor) by a sizable margin.  Prominent women like State Sen. Jennifer Boysko and House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn ran in the 10th, but couldn't even make the Top 3 highest-performers in one of the most-crowded fields in the country (Virginia has its state legislative elections in odd numbered years, so running for a congressional promotion doesn't put your State Senate/Assembly seat at risk).

Currently there are 25 Democrats either retiring or running for another office in 2024, and while it remains to be seen if Democrats will grow the number of women in the House, the current track record doesn't look great.  We're focusing on the Democrats exclusively here (if you want to hear a discussion about women in the Republican House caucus, the comments are there to talk me into doing a follow-up), and of the 25 retiring, 22 are seats that the Democrats would be either favored or (at worst) a tossup to hold (three seats in North Carolina, including Rep. Kathy Manning's, are certain to go to the Republicans).  9 of those 22 are women, but only two of those seats is a woman certain to be the next Democratic nominee (CA-12, DE-AL); the remaining seven are all going to be replaced by men if the Democrats win (CA-16, CA-31, CA-47, MI-7, VA-7, VA-10) or have primaries where it's unclear who will win yet (NH-2).  

April McClain Delaney (MD), one of 9 Democratic
nominees likely to succeed male incumbents this November

This would mean at least a net loss of six women-held seats, though much of that will be recovered in the seats of retiring male Democratic legislators (again, two of which, Jeff Jackson & Wiley Nickel of North Carolina, will go to the Republicans-only the remainder will the Democrats be either certain-or-competitive).  Of those 14 seats, the Democrats are set to nominate a woman to succeed a male incumbent in nine races (AZ-3, CA-29, CA-30, MD-3, MD-6, MN-3, OR-3, TX-32, WA-6) while three seats will have a man nominated to succeed a man (MD-2, NJ-3, MP-AL) and two seats have a primary race where prominent men & women are both running (MI-8, NJ-10).  So women in the Democratic House caucus will have a net gain of 3 if the Democrats were to hold all 22 of these seats, possibly as many as six depending on what happens in New Hampshire, New Jersey, & Michigan.  It should be said that there are two seats that are actually considered sure pickups (similar to North Carolina), the two redistricted seats of AL-2 and LA-6 currently held by Republican men, but both of those will be held by Democratic men in 2025, so honestly that's making the cliff a bit steeper for Democratic women to get to 50%

This is a big deal because the House Democrats are not far-off from parity in their caucus currently.  At the start of the current Congress, women made up 42.9% of the current House Democratic caucus, a lift from the 41.2% they held in the 117th Congress, and considerably higher than the Republicans' 26.2% (also, worth noting an all-time high for the GOP).  A net gain of 6 women would get the Democratic House women to 99 seats, but even if they held the exact same seats, that'd still only get them to 46.5% of the caucus, not quite to 50%.

Missy Cotter Smasal, nominated last night for one of
this fall's biggest Dem pickup opportunities in VA-2

So it's clear that simply holding their current majority is not going to be enough to reach the tough (but plausible) goal of 50% parity in the House Democratic caucus in 2024.  Two other things will need to happen for that to happen.  First, they're going to need to hold onto their most vulnerable incumbents.  Eight seats held by Democratic women running for reelection are considered by Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball as being Tossup/Lean D (the two most competitive designations in their analysis).  Their incumbents are Emilia Sykes (OH-13), Susan Wild (PA-7), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-3), Mary Peltola (AK-AL), Yadira Caraveo (CO-8), Jahana Hayes (CT-5), Angie Craig (MN-2), & Marcy Kaptur (OH-9).  Getting these women reelected would be paramount for Democrats to reach this goal.  Technically, more Democratic men losing while women don't lose would help this number, but given that Democrats don't really want to reach this milestone that way, I am not going to include that in my coverage, even though it's reality.

The other thing is by picking up seats that are considered Tossup/Lean R.  Of the 20 seats that Sabato rates as being in these two classes, seven have Democratic women as the presumptive/confirmed nominees (AZ-6, MT-1, NJ-7, NY-4, OR-5, PA-10, VA-2), while eleven have male nominees (CA-13, CA-22, CA-27, CA-41, CA-45, CO-3, IA-3, MI-10, NE-2, NY-17, NY-19) and two have prominent members of both sides still in contention in the primary (AZ-1, NY-22...though I'd also throw the Guam-AL seat into this camp as a possible place where the caucus could increase their numbers given there is one prominent Democratic woman running and it's a presidential year).  This is kind of where the ball gets dropped to get to 50%-with men nearly 2:1 for the most competitive seats, even if the women in Arizona, New York, & Guam won their competitive primaries, it's probably not enough to get to 50% unless Democratic men start losing or Democrats start winning more longshot seats.  As of now, I'd wager that the Democrats are tracking to gain a higher percentage of women in their House caucus, but 50% remains a goal for a future date.