NEW: After Democrats helped drive a record number of female lawmakers to Capitol Hill in 2018, Republican women swung into action and won big in the 2020 elections. @KaylaEpstein with a deep-dive into how the GOP turned things around. ($) @Politicsinsider ow.ly/GGAF50CofNa
Republican women will grow their combined number of seats in the House and the Senate to at least 36, up from 22 in the 116th session. Come January, Congress will have 142 women, its most ever — the vast majority of them Democrats.
While down-ballot Republicans generally performed well this year, their gains in the House are largely due to a rogue effort by Republican women to pull more female candidates into the primary process and back successful contenders.
"It's very exciting, the outcome," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. "We've needed to reach out to women to run for office as Republicans. I give Elise Stefanik in the House a great deal of credit for organizing that effort and it was extremely successful."
The incoming winners include CA's Michelle Steel, who along with Young Kim & Marilyn Strickland will be among the few Korean American women ever elected to Congress; Stephanie Bice of OK and Nancy Mace of SC, who flipped seats for the GOP; and Yvette Herrell of NM.
Included in this large House cohort of GOP women are at least 2 politicians who have openly supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose adherents the FBI has labeled a terror threat.
This year's reversal, @KaylaEpstein reports, came from Republican women who decided to buck party tradition and strike out on their own, identifying promising candidates early in the cycle and fielding requests from women who wanted to run.
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