As a result of the 2022 election, the number of women serving in the U.S. Congress marks a new high of 149 (106D, 42R, 1Ind), with women holding 27.9% of all seats; 124 (91D, 33R) women serve in the U.S. House, marking a new record in that chamber, while the 25 (15D, 9R, 1Ind) women serving in the U.S. Senate falls one short of the record. In addition, 4 (2D, 2R) women serve as non-voting delegates to the U.S. House.

The number of women in the U.S. Congress increased by two (from 147 to 149) from Election Day 2022 to the January 2023, with net gains of one woman in both the U.S. House (from 123 to 124) and Senate (from 24 to 25). The number of Democratic congresswomen decreased by one overall (from 107 to 106) and in the Senate (from 16 to 15), and stayed the same in the House (91) from Election Day 2022 to the beginning of the 118th Congress (2023-2025).1 The number of Republican women increased by two overall (from 40 to 42) and by one in both the House (from 32 to 33) and Senate (from 8 to 9).

The small gains for Republican women in Congress as a result of the 2022 election have not yielded a significant increase in their representation within their caucus. As of January 3, 2023, women are 15.5% of the Republican members of the 118th Congress, nearly equal to their representation (15.2%) among congressional Republicans as of Election Day 2022. Likewise, Democratic women’s representation among Democratic members is almost equal between Election Day 2022 (39.9%) to the beginning of the 118th Congress (40.8%). Women continue to be significantly better represented among Democrats than Republicans in Congress, especially in the U.S. House.

The modest gains made for women in Congress as a result of the 2022 election stand in contrast to larger increases in women’s congressional representation as a result of elections 2018 and 2020. While there is neither a single nor definitive reason for the relative stasis in women’s congressional representation in this election cycle, there are multiple factors that likely contributed to this outcome.

• Unlike in 2018 and 2020, women did not run for and win nomination to the U.S. Congress in universally record numbers in 2022. Even among Republican women – who did achieve new records as candidates for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate – they fell short of previous highs as nominees on general election ballots.2
• The forecast for a difficult year for Democrats likely shaped strategic considerations and contributed to the decline in women’s candidacies. Because Democratic women continue to dominate the full pool of women candidates – which includes all women who filed as major-party candidates and appeared on a ballot – the trends for Democrats have especially significant effects on the trends for women overall. In 2022, that meant that the decline in Democratic candidates overall (women and men) stymied the potential to reach a new record in congressional candidacies for women as a whole.
• The number of women departing the U.S. House (21) – whether due to retirement, running for another office, or primary or general election defeat – was larger in 2022 than in any other election cycle in U.S. history.
• Redistricting and reapportionment likely influenced women’s decisions to run or not in the 2022 cycle, and certainly contributed to the defeat of multiple incumbent women last year. While not universally helpful or hurtful to women specifically, redistricting contributed to the dynamism of the electoral environment in 2022 and should caution against direct comparison to cycles in which redistricting and reapportionment are not at play.
• The political environment preceding filing deadlines for the 2022 election did not foster the same sense of urgency among women as was evident in election 2018, when women’s perceptions of threat were a key factor in motivating congressional candidacies. In 2020, some of that urgency persisted alongside what appeared to be a particular motivation among Republican women to push back against narratives that the Republican Party was particularly bad for women. While the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal protections of abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in late June 2022 mobilized women voters and activists,it came after most candidate filing deadlines had passed. The continued efforts to both preserve and restrict abortion rights at the state and federal levels could have more notable influence in women’s candidacy calculations in future cycles.
• Lastly, while women received much attention – from targeted recruitment and support to media coverage of their candidacies – in elections 2018 and 2020, there appeared to be less focus on women running and winning office in election 2022. After two historic cycles for women, this decline in focus and subsequent stasis of outcomes should serve as a point of caution against preemptively declaring victory in fights for equality after significant progress is made. Sustaining, expanding, and providing necessary support to efforts to recruit women candidates and enable their electoral success are necessary to ensure continued progress toward gender parity in U.S. politics.

In light of these factors likely to dampen women’s congressional gains, women still reached a new overall high for congressional representation thanks to the success of non-incumbent women. The 2022 election marks the fourth-highest number of non-incumbent winners of House seats in all of U.S. history, only trailing 2020, 2018, and 1992. Moreover, the new women in Congress will contribute to the overall diversity of congressional representation, including racial/ethnic and generational diversity among congresswomen.

U.S. House

• As a result of the 2022 election, the number of women serving in the U.S. House marks a new high of 124 (91D, 33R), up from 123 on Election Day 2022. Women hold 28.5% of all U.S. House seats. In addition, 4 (2D, 2R) women serve as non-voting delegates to the U.S. House.
• The freshman class of women in the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress is the fourth-largest ever, with 22 (15D, 7R) non-incumbent women elected in 2022. While the freshman class of women in the 118th House is notably large in historic terms, the gains by non-incumbent women winners were offset by the highest count – 21 (15D, 6R) – of incumbent House women departures in history.
• Of the 22 new women serving in the 118th House, 14 (63.6%) previously served in state legislatures. Perhaps more notably, almost one-third (7) of the newly-elected women in the U.S. House were first elected or appointed to state legislative office since the 2016 election, suggesting that the increase in women’s success at the state legislative level from 2017 to today has had important implications for women’s representation at higher levels of office.
• The start of the 118th Congress marks the swearing in of the most racially/ethnically diverse group of women officeholders in the U.S. House to date, including new record highs in representation for Black (27) and Latina/Hispanic (18) women in the U.S. House.
• The number of women who filed as candidates for the U.S. House did not change between 2020, when it reached a record high of 583, and 2022. A significant contributor to this stasis is the decline in Democratic House candidacies, which occurred among both women and men. In contrast, the drop in women nominees for the U.S. House, which was equal across parties, appears to a gendered pattern; men in both parties increased U.S. House nominations from 2020 to 2022, albeit only slightly. 
• Eleven states have no women representing them in the U.S. House in the 118th Congress, down from 13 at the end of the 117th Congress. Vermont elected its first woman ever to the U.S. House (and to Congress) in the 2022 election. There remain two states that have never sent a woman to the U.S. House: Mississippi and North Dakota.

The number of women who filed as candidates for the U.S. House did not change between 2020, when it reached a record high of 583, and 2022. However, the number of Republican women who filed as candidates for the U.S. House increased by 34 (+15%) from 2020 to 2022, while the number of Democratic women who filed as House candidates dropped by 34 (-9.6%) across cycles. The number of women nominees – those appearing on the general election ballot – declined by 38 (-12.8%) between 2020 and 2022, with the percentage drop in nominees almost equal for Democratic (-12.7%) and Republican (-12.8%) women.3 Still, Democratic women remained – as in previous cycles – the majority of women candidates (55.2%) and nominees (68.5%) for the U.S. House in election 2022.

Notably, the decline in Democratic women’s candidacies appears to be more of a partisan story than a gendered one; both Democratic men (-7.2%) and women (-9.6%) saw a decline in House candidacies from 2020 to 2022, while both Republican men (+13.7%) and women (+15%) increased candidacies across cycles. Among the potential causes for this Democratic drop is the electoral forecast for the 2022 midterms, which – based on historical precedent and contemporaneous political climate – predicted better conditions for Republicans than Democrats.

The drop in women nominees for the U.S. House, which was – as noted above – equal across parties, appears to a gendered pattern; men in both parties increased U.S. House nominations from 2020 to 2022, albeit only slightly. 

Across parties, women fell short of parity with men as U.S. House candidates, nominees, and winners in 2022. Women were 28% of candidates who filed to run for the U.S. House and were 31% all nominees. Women were 28.5% of House winners. Republican women made up a smaller proportion of their party’s candidates, nominees, and winners for the U.S. House than did Democratic women in 2022, consistent with previous cycles. In 2022, women were 37.2% of Democratic and 21.5% of Republican candidates. The party disparity grew by the nomination stage, where women were 42.9% of Democratic and 19.4% of Republican nominees.

Another indicator of the persistent dominance of men among U.S. House nominees is the occurrence of all-male general election contests. Of the 435 U.S. House contests in election 2022, just under half (213) pitted two men against each other or were contests where men ran unopposed. In contrast, less than ten percent (40) of House contests pitted two women against each other or were contests where women ran unopposed.

Gender and partisan disparities are notable among non-incumbent winners of general election contests in 2022, especially in comparison to recent election cycles. In the 2020 election, 43.8% of all non-incumbent winners of U.S. House seats were women, nearing gender parity; in fact, women were the majority (60%) of Democratic and 38.8% of Republican non-incumbent House winners. In 2022, women were a smaller proportion of non-incumbent House winners overall (28.6%) and among Democrats (44.1%) and Republicans (16.3%), though women continued to represent a much larger share of Democratic newcomers to the U.S. House as a result of the 2022 election.

The freshman class of women in the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress is the fourth-largest ever, with 22 (15D, 7R) non-incumbent women elected in 2022. The largest freshman class of women emerged from the 2018 election, when 36 (35D, 1R) non-incumbent women were elected. The second and third-largest classes of non-incumbent House women came in 2020 (28 [9D, 19R]) and 1992 (24 [21D, 3R]), respectively. While 67.9% of freshman House women in the 117th Congress were Republicans, the same majority (68.2%) of freshman House women are Democrats in the 118th Congress.

Of the 22 new women serving in the House, 14 (63.6%) previously served as state legislators. Perhaps more notably, almost one-third (7) of the newly-elected women in the U.S. House were first elected or appointed to state legislative office since the 2016 election, suggesting that the increase in women’s success at the state legislative level from 2017 to today has had important implications for women’s representation at higher levels of office. Of the 7 (6D, 1R) women state legislators who have entered state legislative and now congressional office for the first time in the past five years, 3 (3D) are Latina/Hispanic, 3 (3D) are Black, and 1 (1R) is white. 

Republican non-incumbent women nominees for the U.S. House won at a lower rate than non-incumbent Republican men, Democratic men, and Democratic women, a turn from the 2020 election when they outperformed each of these groups. And while there was a gender difference in House non-incumbent nominee win rates among Republicans, Democratic non-incumbent women and men nominees fared equally well in general election contests.

While the freshman class of women in the 118th House is notably large in historic terms, the gains by non-incumbent women winners were offset by the departures of incumbent House women in the 2022 election. In total, 21 (15D, 6R) women House incumbents in the 117th Congress will not return to the House in 2023. This includes 12 (10D, 2R) incumbent women who retired or ran for other offices, 5 (3D, 2R) women incumbents who were defeated in primary contests, and 4 (2D, 2R) women incumbents who were defeated in the general election.4 While numbers of women retiring or running for other offices and women incumbents defeated in general election contests were either equal to or below previous highs, the number of women incumbents defeated in primary contests marks a historic high and contributed to the highest total incumbent House women departures in history.

All three Democratic incumbent women defeated in primary elections were forced to run against incumbents of their own party due to redistricting: Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) was defeated by Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY); Representative Marie Newman (D-IL) was defeated by Representative Sean Casten (D-IL); and Representative Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-GA) was defeated by Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA). The two Republican incumbent women defeated in primary elections faced a different type of challenge; both Representatives Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) faced Trump-backed challengers in the Republican primary who used the women’s disloyalty to former President Donald Trump as a winning strategy.

Of the 9 (5D, 4R) incumbent House women who were defeated in primary or general election contests in 2022, 3 (2D, 1R) were defeated by other women. In addition, while Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) was defeated by a man – Joe Kent – in the Republican primary, she was succeeded by another woman – Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) – who defeated Kent in the open-seat general election contest.

Racial/Ethnic Diversity

The start of the 118th Congress marks the swearing in of the most racially/ethnically diverse group of women officeholders in the U.S. House to date. As a result of the 2022 election, a record number of Black (27) and Latina/Hispanic (18) women serve in the U.S. House. The numbers of Asian American/Pacific Islander (8) and Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian (2) women in the U.S. House match previous highs, and the numbers of Middle Eastern/North African (1) and white (72) women are short of current records for House representation. Included in these counts are 4 (1D, 3R) women who identify as multiracial: Representative Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) is Black and Asian American/Pacific Islander and Representatives Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-OR), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) are Latina/Hispanic and white.

Among the 22 freshman women members of the 118th House are:

• 5 (5D) Black women, including the first Black woman sent to Congress from Pennsylvania – Representative Summer Lee (D-PA);
• 7 (4D, 3R) Latina/Hispanic women, including the first Latina/Hispanic woman sent to Congress from Colorado (Representative Yadira Caraveo [D-CO]), Illinois (Representative Delia Ramirez [D-IL]), and Oregon (Representatives Lori Chavez-DeRemer [R-OR] and Andrea Salinas [D-OR]); and
• 1 (1D) Asian American/Pacific Islander woman.

Together, they represent more than half of the new women who serve in the U.S. House in 2023. Notably, the number of non-incumbent Latina/Hispanic women elected to the U.S. House in 2022 (7) marked a record high, up from a previous high of five in the 2018 election. 

The racial/ethnic diversity among women in the U.S. House differs by party, with greater diversity among Democratic than Republican women officeholders (see breakdown in charts below). This partisan disparity has been consistent throughout history, with 90.6% of all Republican women who have served in the U.S. House identifying as white alone in contrast to 64.2% of Democratic women representatives. That contrast persists in the 118th Congress.

A record number of Black (134) and Latina/Hispanic (85) women ran for the U.S. House in 2022, and a record number of Latina/Hispanic (36) women were House nominees in November. The number of Black women nominees (56), Asian American/Pacific Islander women candidates (30) and nominees (11), and white women candidates (321) and nominees (158) for the U.S. House in 2022 fell below previous highs. The numbers of Middle Eastern/North African women candidates (7) and nominees (2) for the U.S. House in 2022 were lower than in 2020, but this is just the third cycle that CAWP has collected data on this specific group of women.

The number of Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian women U.S. House candidates (17) and nominees (7) remained low in 2022, but historical comparison is difficult due to CAWP’s expansion of coding in this category. CAWP added Alaska Native as a category of self-identification in our data collection starting in 2019 and Native Hawaiian as a category for self-identification in our data collecting starting in 2021, limiting our ability to report historical information about these specific groups of women.

The 2022 election also marked record highs for Black (105D, 29R) and Latina/Hispanic (43D, 42R) women House candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties. A record number of white women (166) were also Republican candidates for the U.S. House. While Latina/Hispanic women House nominees reached new records among both Democrats (20) and Republicans (16), Black women House nominees achieved a new record only in the Democratic Party (50).

Differences by State

The number of women in states’ U.S. House delegations went up in eight states, went down in seven states, and stayed the same in 35 states as a result of the 2022 election. Democratic women gained U.S. House seats in eight states and lost seats in seven states. Republican women gained seats in four states and lost seats in four states as a result of election 2022.

Eleven states have no women representing them in the U.S. House in the 118th Congress: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Utah. These states represent 11 of the 13 states that had no women serving in the U.S. House at the end of the 117th Congress. Hawaii and Vermont both elected new women to serve in the U.S. House in 2023, up from zero in 2022. Vermont elected its first woman ever to the U.S. House (and to Congress) in the 2022 election. There remain two states that have never sent a woman to the U.S. House: Mississippi and North Dakota.

U.S. Senate

• The 25 (15D, 9R, 1Ind) women serving in the U.S. Senate as a result of the 2022 election falls one short of the record.5 Women hold 25% of all U.S. Senate seats. With her decision to change party affiliation, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (Ind-AZ) becomes the first and only woman independent to serve in Congress.
• Just one non-incumbent woman – Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) – won a U.S. Senate contest in the 2022 election. All incumbent women senators who were up for re-election in 2022 ran for office and all were successful, despite competitive contests in multiple states.
• Despite achieving record highs for Black women candidates and nominees for the U.S. Senate in 2022, no Black women serve in the U.S. Senate in 2023. No Black women has served in the U.S. Senate since January 2021 and just two (2D) Black women have ever served in the Senate. To date, no Middle Eastern/North African or Native woman has ever served in the U.S. Senate.
• All of the Republican women in the U.S. Senate – both in 2023 and historically – are white, while 80% of Democratic women senators in 2023 and 86.1% of Democratic women senators who have ever served are white.
• A record number – 70 (32D, 38R) – of women filed as candidates for the U.S. Senate in the 2022 election, with Republican women’s candidacies accounting for the increase between elections 2020 and 2022. However, the number of women Senate nominees fell short of previous highs, with Republican women nominees down slightly and Democratic women nominees up slightly from 2020 to 2022.
• Of the 29 states that currently have no women in their Senate delegations, 17 have never sent a woman to the U.S. Senate. Of the 21 states that have at least one woman representing them in the U.S. Senate in the 118th Congress, four states have all-women Senate delegations: Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Washington.

A record number – 70 (32D, 38R) – of women filed as candidates for the U.S. Senate in the 2022 election, up from the previous high of 60 set in 2020.6 Across parties, the increase in women’s U.S. Senate candidacies was slightly larger from 2020 to 2022 (+16.7%) than it was between 2018 and 2020 (+13.2%), but still smaller than the rise between 2016 and 2018 (+32.5%). The partisan differences evident in House candidacies persisted in the Senate; Republican women saw a notable (+65.2%) jump in Senate candidacies from 2020 to 2022 while Democratic women’s Senate candidacies declined across cycles (-13.5%). And in 2022, while a record number of women ran for U.S. Senate, the number of women Senate nominees fell short of previous highs. The number of women Senate nominees declined by one (-4.8%) between 2020 and 2022, with Republican women nominees down by two (-22.2) and Democratic women nominees up by one (+8.3%) from 2020 to 2022.

Unlike in the U.S. House, Democratic women were unique from their male counterparts in seeing a drop in Senate candidacies. Democratic and Republican men, as well as Republican women, saw a rise in Senate candidates from 2020 to 2022.

The change in Senate nominees by gender between 2020 and 2022 diverged by party. The gender break among Democrats stayed almost exactly the same between 2020 and 2022, with Democratic women gaining one nomination thanks to an additional U.S. Senate contest in 2022. Among Republicans, men increased their share of Senate nominations between 2020 and 2022.

Across parties, women fell short of parity with men as U.S. Senate candidates, nominees, and winners in 2022. Women were 21.7% of candidates who filed to run for the U.S. Senate and were 28.6% of all nominees. Women were 17.1% of Senate winners. Republican women made up a smaller proportion of their party’s candidates, nominees, and winners for the U.S. Senate than did Democratic women in 2022. In 2022, women were 26.4% of Democratic and 18.9% of Republican candidates. The party disparity grew by the nomination stage, where women were 39.4% of Democratic and 18.9% of Republican nominees.

All-male general election contests remained the norm in election 2022. Of the 35 U.S. Senate general election contests in election 2022, over half (19) pitted two men against each other or were contests where men ran unopposed in the general election. In contrast, less than ten percent (3) of general election Senate contests pitted two or more women against each other; this includes the three-way, all-woman general election contest for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat.

Just one non-incumbent woman – Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) – won a U.S. Senate contest in the 2022 election. This matches outcomes in election 2020, when the sole non-incumbent woman winner of a U.S. Senate contest was a Republican: Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). In 2023, Britt represents one of five new Republican senators. Both new Democratic senators are men.

Non-incumbent women nominees for the U.S. Senate won at a lower rate than non-incumbent men in the 2022 election, overall and among both Democratic and Republican nominees. In the 2020 election, Republican women non-incumbent nominees slightly outperformed their male counterparts in Senate elections.

All incumbent women senators who were up for re-election in 2022 ran for office, and all were successful, despite competitive contests in multiple states.

Racial and Ethnic Diversity

Of the 25 (15D, 9R, 1Ind) women who will serve in the U.S. Senate in the 118th Congress, 2 (2D) are Asian American/Pacific Islander, 1 (1D) is Latina/Hispanic, and 22 (12D, 9R, 1Ind) are white. No Black, Middle Eastern/North African, or Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian women serve in the U.S. Senate in 2023 and no Middle Eastern/North African, or Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian women have ever served in the U.S. Senate.

All of the Republican women in the U.S. Senate – both in 2023 and historically – are white, while 80% of Democratic women senators in 2023 and 86.1% of Democratic women senators who have ever served are white.

A record number of Black women were candidates (22) and nominees (4) for the U.S. Senate in 2022, while the number of Latina/Hispanic women Senate candidates (3) and nominees (2) matched previous highs. The number of Asian American/Pacific Islander women candidates (2) and nominees (1), and white women candidates (39) and nominees (12) for the U.S. Senate in 2022 fell below previous highs.

The number of Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian women U.S. Senate candidates (3) and nominees (1) remained low in 2022, but historical comparison is difficult due to CAWP’s aforementioned expansion of coding in this category. In 2022, just 1 (1D) woman candidate for the U.S. Senate identified as Middle Eastern/North African and she did not advance to the general election; CAWP added this category to our race/ethnicity identification in 2018.

The 2022 election also marked record highs for Black women candidates in both the Democratic (16) and Republican (6) parties, and Black women nominees (4) in the Democratic party; no Black Republican women Senate candidates advanced to the general election. The number of Republican Latina/Hispanic women senate candidates (2) and nominees (1) also marked record highs in 2022, though none were successful.

Differences by State

Alabama is the only state that added a woman to its Senate delegation as a result of the 2022 election. In total, 21 states have at least one woman representing them in the U.S. Senate in the 118th Congress, including four states whose Senate delegations are all women: Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Washington. Of the 29 states that currently have no women in their Senate delegations, 17 have never sent a woman to the U.S. Senate: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia.

Looking Ahead

The relative stasis in women’s congressional representation as a result of the 2022 election, as well as the continued underrepresentation of women in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, should serve as a reminder that the work to achieve gender parity in congressional politics is not done. As we look ahead to the remainder of the 118th Congress, we will be paying particular attention to opportunities for women’s representation in special elections – such as the February election to fill the vacancy in Virginia’s 4th congressional district – and the ability of long-serving and newly-elected women to exercise their power and influence within their caucuses, committees, and chambers. As we look ahead to the next election in 2024, we will be watching to see what motivates women to run for office – including the potential for continued contestations of abortion rights to yield women candidates across levels of office – as well as the support infrastructures (both internal and external to political parties, and specific to groups of women by race/ethnicity, party, age, or other identities and affiliations) that exist to set women candidates and nominees up for success through Election Day. Lastly, the 2022 election showed how losing women incumbents can significantly stall women’s representational progress. In continuing work to advance women’s political power and representation, we must be attentive to the hurdles to retention for incumbent women officeholders and address those hurdles with recognition of the full range of diversity among women – and specifically, the diversity of their political experiences and opportunities – in U.S. political institutions.