Democratic women elected officials at Emerge America’s Annual Ambition to Action Conference.
The 2016 election delivered a stunning defeat for Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket. However, local and state elections across the country provided a silver living for women in politics.
In New Mexico, Stephanie Garcia Richard, Joanne Ferrary, and Liz Thomson, delivered victories in key swing districts and were responsible for flipping the state house blue. Joanne Ferrary unsuccessfully ran for the same seat, against the same incumbent, in 2012 and 2014. Despite outside pressure to stay out of the race, she persevered and won.
In Kentucky, first time candidate McKenzie Cantrell successfully beat a Republican incumbent for a state house seat, despite the state voting for Donald Trump 63 percent to Clinton’s 33 percent. Brandi Harless will serve as the youngest mayor of Paducah and Michelle Williams will serve as Covington’s first African-American vice mayor.
In Colorado, Dafna Michaelson-Jenet picked up a Republican state house seat in a swing district. Leslie Herod will be the first African American LGBTQ state legislator from Colorado, and together with Dominique Jackson, they will be two of just three Black women serving in the Colorado State House.
In Maryland, Shannon Sneed won a five-way primary with 54 percent of the vote and swept her general election race for Baltimore City Council. She first attempted to win the same seat in 2011 with a write-in campaign, coming within just a few hundred votes. This time, she won the general election with over 90 percent of the vote.
In Massachusetts, 29-year old Juana Matias will serve as the first Latina legislator in the Massachusetts State House.
In Oregon, Teresa Alonso Leon will be the first immigrant Latina to be elected to the Oregon State House.
In Nevada, first time candidate for state senate Nicole Canizzarro was the linchpin that flipped the state senate, where Republicans had held a narrow 11-10 majority. Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, Lesley Cohen and Ellen Spiegel won their races for the state house giving back control of the chamber to Democrats.
What do all of these women have in common? They are part of Emerge America, an organization I founded in 2005 to recruit and train Democratic women to run for office. We started in California and now have affiliates in 16 states with one on the way in Tennessee. I had this crazy idea that if you recruit, train and provide a powerful network to Democratic women interested in running for office, they will actually do it. And guess what: it is working. We have trained over 2,000 women to run for office during the last 14 years. Over 52 percent of those women have run for office and 70 percent of those have won their races. We recruit and train diverse women, as 39 percent of our graduates are women of color.
Last Tuesday, we had 213 Emerge women on ballots across the country and 146 won, an almost 70 percent win rate. Even though they weren’t the high profile races for governor or senate, their wins are still incredibly meaningful. We are creating a pipeline. Exactly half of Congress came from the state legislatures. You can’t win races if you don’t have a well-trained, compelling candidate. These offices are also important because it’s often one or two seats that make the difference and flip state legislative bodies from red to blue. In Nevada, Emerge alumnae delivered victories that flipped both chambers of the state legislature from Republican to Democrat. In New Mexico, 19 of our 23 candidates won their races flipping their state house back to Democratic control. These offices work on issues that affect our communities. We need women’s voices at the local and state level as well as the national level.
Don’t despair. Hillary Clinton’s loss does not mean that Democratic women can’t run and win. We can and we will - that is how we can take back this country. One seat at a time.