Inside the House GOP’s struggle to recruit more women

House GOP women still have a numbers problem.

Four years after a wave of elected conservative women reshaped the ranks of the House GOP conference, Republican women have watched their gains in the chamber stagnate — and it seems likely they’ll see losses in 2025. Even if they keep the House, they’re set to lose every sitting female chair.

It’s a dynamic that’s frustrating some women throughout the conference, who want to see an even more explicit commitment to growing their ranks from top party leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson.

While House Republicans have a record high 34 women serving in the chamber, or about 15 percent of their conference, it doesn't compare to the 92 women in the Democratic caucus.

“We are 10 years behind,” said Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), who was elected to Congress in 2020. “We don't have a deep bench of women. We don't have a big pool to choose from. We've got to fix that. And I think our class was the start of that.”

That frustration comes as gender has played a critical role in the strategies of both presidential campaigns. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has made outreach to women a central focus of her three-month campaign, centered around Republican efforts to further restrict abortion since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, who has been found liable for sexual abuse, is running a pro-male campaign that prioritizes messaging to men. He’s appeared on male-friendly podcasts like “Kill Tony,” “BS w/ Jake Paul” and the “Joe Rogan Experience” where he has talked about golf, boxing, UFOs, and more as he chases the “bro vote.”

But those efforts could come at the cost of women voters up and down the ballot, as the Republican Party reckons with a significant — and possibly widening — gender gap. Female GOP lawmakers worry that, without a deep bench of women in institutions like the House, the party won’t have the voices at the top that it needs to address those political and cultural issues over time.

In interviews with 24 House Republican women, many said efforts to bolster their ranks suffer from a fundamental problem: The demands of serving in Congress aren’t conducive to raising a family. And several argued that the Republican Party’s focus on the importance of traditional nuclear families adds cultural pressures that they don’t believe Democratic women have to deal with in the same way. Republican women said they are often still saddled with questions like: “What about your family?” “Are your children OK without you?” or “How is your husband doing?”

“People are harder on moms who get involved in politics. I also think, on our side, out in conservative circles, women are more likely to want a traditional family model, where they stay home with their kids. And those critical years, where men tend to get involved in politics, a lot of women are not,” said Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah). “But I support all moms regardless of what career path they choose.”

Democratic women said that those challenges are daunting for them as well; they argue their party has simply invested far more aggressively in elevating women. Florida Rep. Lois Frankel, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, disputed GOP suggestions that there’s less pressure on mothers in their party.

“Democratic women are committed to their families as much as Republican women. That, to me, is a no-brainer to say,” she said. “I disagree with them when they say women are waiting to get older [before running].”

Still, the Republican Party broadly has consistently struggled to appeal to women. Female voters have favored Democratic presidential candidates by double digits in every election since 2008 — 55 percent of women voted for Joe Biden in 2020 vs. 44 percent for Donald Trump.

If GOP women can significantly increase their numbers in the House, then they believe they would kickstart a powerful domino effect: Filling the Senate with more Republican women, bolstering their message to voters across the country and perhaps even paving the way for a Republican woman to secure the party’s nomination for president.

Some said that the progress they’ve made so far supports that theory: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 4 House Republican, was seriously considered as Trump’s vice presidential candidate earlier this year.

But many House Republican women say it’s still a struggle to even be considered as a candidate, citing a persistent boys-club mentality in some local party chapters that they feel pushes male candidates forward over more qualified female candidates.

Some House GOP women are demanding changes. Perhaps the most vocal lawmaker on that front right now is conservative Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who is threatening to withhold her vote for GOP leader unless the House gives new moms a tool to vote from afar, like proxy voting. That push doesn’t have widespread support among Republican women, but other ideas have circulated about how to bolster their ranks come 2027.

The young family problem

Conservative GOP women suggest the struggles of balancing a highly demanding job with raising a young family is even more pronounced for them than it is for their Democratic counterparts. They cited a stronger cultural embrace of the need for a children-first and careers-second approach — an attitude that many of them agree with.

“If you do this job right, and you do it really well, you work a ton, and it isn't super conducive to raising a family. It's just not,” said McClain, who noted she spent only a handful of nights at home in August because she was on the road campaigning.

Raising young children while working is never easy, but serving in Congress comes with some particular hardships. There are significant pressures for lawmakers to raise their families at home in their district, though the schedule requires them to be in Washington for weeks at a time.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Julia Letlow (R-La.), Luna, Stefanik and others have juggled the demands of the job and motherhood, success stories that women believe are chipping away at a mindset that women can’t be a mother to young children and serve in Congress at the same time.

Stefanik, the top woman in House GOP leadership, said seeing McMorris Rodgers raising young kids in office helped give her “the confidence to run as conference chair while I was expecting my child,” and suggested views about the limits of motherhood are “changing over time.”

Others said the problem has persisted.

“When Laurel Lee called me and she said, ‘I have a [school-aged] daughter, should I do this?’ I was like, ‘I'm the wrong person to call because I wouldn’t have done it,’” said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), referring to a Florida lawmaker who was elected to the House in 2022. “But she chose to do it. And it's working out for her. So, I think, as we get more women, there'll be more examples of: We can do it, too.”

“I think that that bleeds over into why there might be less women in Congress,” Lesko added.

There are two main efforts to rectify those concerns. Luna is pushing to allow proxy voting in lieu of maternity leave, while others are lobbying for a wider change to the House’s schedule, which typically has members in Washington for three or more weeks at a time.

Luna, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said her vote for GOP leader will be contingent on that person making concessions for new moms in the upcoming rules package. Proxy voting policies are widely disliked among Republicans, who had argued during the Covid pandemic that lawmakers owed it to their constituents to show up in person and that the way Democrats went about it was unconstitutional. But Luna said her proposal would be different, and she’s gotten back-up from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on the idea.

“If they want my vote for speaker, amongst some other things, they're going to have to say that we're going to actually do that in the rules packages,” Luna said in an interview.

While Luna indicated that current leaders are more “into the times” and open to it, Stefanik quickly shut down the possibility, arguing that the party opposes proxy and remote voting. Other GOP women lawmakers said they would consider it for “specified reasons” that would go beyond having a baby, including serious health concerns. The challenge, they argued, is making sure members don’t take advantage of the system.

Other women are pushing for major changes to the schedule, including one that would allow them to be in Washington for two weeks and then spend two weeks back home. They said that would allow for better work-life balance.

“When I came in, it was Covid times, and so the schedules were more amenable to families. My kids were in middle school at the time, and it worked really well. Now that we're back to a normal session, the travel is grueling,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “So one of the things that I've advocated for and would support would be a schedule that's more family-friendly.”

Said another member, granted anonymity to speak candidly: “I think, particularly for male members, they have a different thought process about the need to be home than I do. And the way they set the schedule is difficult.”

Wanted: More resources

Stefanik is frequently credited by members for her significant efforts to spearhead recruitment of female candidates, mainly through her women-focused Elevate PAC, known as E-PAC. Other, less formal efforts have also cropped up. But generally, conservative women still feel like they don’t have enough resources.

Only two conservative GOP women candidates appear likely to win their House seats in November, while four Republican women in the House — including one non-voting member — are leaving at the end of this term. Four other House Republican women are at risk of losing their races.

Stefanik indicated there’s plenty of interest in serving in Congress; she believes that more than a thousand women have reached out to her since she began her PAC. And she has raised more than $3 million this cycle for the cause of electing more women.

“When I started E-PAC in 2018, it was because there clearly was a problem. We lost a number of women in that blue-wave year, and we were down to 13 women. … It was clear to me that we needed to do better,” Stefanik said in an interview. “I think we can still get above 36 next cycle.” (There are currently 34 voting women in the House GOP and two who are non-voting.)

Others are also engaging in separate efforts to recruit more women, including doing so on the individual level. Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.), for example, leads efforts to recruit more diverse women in her state, after crediting former GOP Reps. Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher for encouraging her own House run. Some also point to two other groups who help boost women in races: ViewPAC and Winning for Women.

Still, some GOP women say they need resources akin to Democrats’ Emily’s List, which prepares female candidates to run for office.

Emily’s List is seen as more thorough and centralized in its efforts to recruit, fund and elect more women. Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) said that group tells Democrats “step by step how to run a campaign.” But that’s not a universal view in the party: Stefanik argued against centralizing the effort, and instead indicated they should work on a pipeline at the state and local levels.

While many GOP women indicated they were pleasantly surprised that the House itself doesn’t feel like a boys club these days, they said that attitude persists in some local party chapters — where they argued male candidates sometimes get picked over more qualified women candidates.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said she personally experienced this scenario in 2015, when the local party backed Dan Donovan to run over her in a special election. Stefanik later encouraged her to run in 2020. Donovan was elected twice to the seat before he was beaten by a Democrat, who Malliotakis then defeated by 6 points and handily beat again in 2022.

And Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who previously worked on recruitment for the National Republican Congressional Committee, remembered fighting with members of her party as she and other GOP women sought to back Stefanik’s initial bid for the House back in 2014.

“There were some that would have chosen a different candidate, and I think that was the first time that we women really collectively stood up and roared,” Wagner said.

Multiple sitting GOP women recalled being urged to run, whether by a party leader or, more rarely, an outgoing male incumbent. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy earned praise for his efforts to expand the party’s reach on this front. Some explicitly said they hope Speaker Johnson will carry that torch, though they don’t think they can judge him based on the latest cycle, given he ascended to the post after recruitment efforts had largely concluded.

Still, some women said they have missed McCarthy’s pointed efforts to seek out opportunities for women.

“With the McCarthy team, everything was very calculated and planned out. You know, he'd been planning for this for years … now I just feel kind of underutilized,” said one GOP woman, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. She acknowledged that she could’ve done more to assert herself, but added: “It was just nice to be asked and to be able to get that experience. It can be hard to put yourself out there.”

Many GOP women lawmakers said they have tried to encourage and recruit women in their own districts, with varying success. One example is Lesko, who is retiring at the end of this term.

“I was hoping that a woman would replace me. I called several women that I knew in Arizona, and they didn't want to do it,” she said.

Democrats vs. Republicans

There are nearly three times as many House Democratic women as Republican women. And GOP lawmakers acknowledge part of that is due to how much earlier Democrats invested in recruiting women.

Nancy Pelosi, the first female House speaker, said Democrats were intentional about boosting their female ranks. It was “a decision that we made to recruit, to fund, to train.” In addition to more membership, Democratic women in the House have also ascended to higher leadership positions than their GOP counterparts.

“When I came years ago, it was 12 [women] Democrats, 11 Republicans. We've gone up to 94 in this Congress,” Pelosi added, counting two non-voting Democratic women who are currently serving. “And lately, the Republicans have gotten more, but for a while they were really far behind.”

But Republican women also contend that Democrats are less sensitive to charges about elevating women at least partially based on their gender. (Democrats disagreed with any suggestion that they prioritize quantity over quality.)

“Nothing is worse than people saying you’re a ‘token’ — that you didn't earn your seat,” said Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.).

That extends the other way, of course — Republican women don’t want to feel limited in potential opportunities because of their gender, either. And some said those practices still occur in their party, citing the so-called Pence rule: Former Vice President Mike Pence has publicly said he had a policy against meeting alone or having dinner with women, even staffers, out of respect for his marriage. One GOP woman, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said that’s extremely limiting and suggested there are other, gender-neutral ways to set up those boundaries.

Another remarked: “I understand where it's coming from, but how else are women supposed to have professional lives as long as men are going out — having dinner and cocktails and playing golf and everything else they're doing — and we're not part of that?”

Frankel, the chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, contended that a broader “cultural bias” impacts both parties. For example, a male wealthy hedge fund manager will have access to more money than a woman who previously worked as a teacher, she said. And that goes back to the real reason Democrats had more women in office, she argued: The party invests more in female candidates.

“A very, very big factor, especially running for higher office and even Congress, is access to money. And traditionally, it is men — because of the professions they are in, the people they know, the people they hang out with — who have the relationships to raise the money that is necessary to win,” Frankel said.

‘If it involved a vagina, I’m talking about it’

Several GOP women said they felt leaders expected them to serve as a mouthpiece for issues men didn’t feel comfortable talking about, like abortion — putting many of them in a basket they didn’t want to be in.

Republican women said a few issues have recently fallen into that category: baby formula affordability, women’s health care, in vitro fertilization and certain parts of education. And while they’re happy to speak on those policies sometimes, many resented that their male counterparts would mainly turn to them on those issues.

One conservative woman, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said she specifically told Republicans as she came into the House that she was “not your poster child for abortion.”

“Every time there's a bill that has to do with sexual assault, rape kit testing, you name it, if it involves a vagina, I'm talking about it in [committee],” said another conservative woman. “That’s OK, as long as it does not stop there and you think of me for the other issues.”

Some women do want to be leading voices on those issues. Mace has openly discussed her perspective as a rape victim and has been vocal on abortion access, the backlog on processing rape kits and boosting IVF and access to contraception — positions that don’t always align with the broader party.

And that lack of representation at the top could get worse next year. House Republicans are about to lose all of their sitting female committee chairs, though it’s possible other women will secure top posts in the next Congress.

While the party is publicly against quotas, GOP women said House leadership is certainly guilty of talking about the need for a woman to be in leadership or lead a committee or fill a post on a male-dominated panel. Whether a woman’s resume is a good fit becomes a secondary talking point, they said.

A frequently cited example was when former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — the highest-ranking woman in the House GOP at the time — was booted from leadership, and initial talk of replacing her involved a lot of talk about gender. Stefanik, who raised her hand for the job early, eventually was elected to the spot.

“When we removed Liz Cheney as chair, then it was: ‘We have to replace her with a woman.’ So that's not discrediting Elise Stefanik in her role and what she's done, but immediately the conversation was: She has to be replaced by a woman,” Boebert said. “The qualification was secondary. And she's done a phenomenal job.”