The 2024 election did not mark significant changes in women’s political representation. While women’s representation increased at the state legislative level as a result of last year’s election, there were no net gains for women in statewide elective executive and congressional offices. The number of women governors momentarily reached a record high in early 2025, only to fall back to match the count of women top state executives serving in 2024. This report analyzes women’s electoral success in 2024, focusing on the numbers, and puts it into historical context — with special attention to how 2024 compared to the three elections that preceded it.

This report details the numeric gains and sites for stasis for women in congressional, statewide elective executive, and state legislative office, with particular attention to differences with men, between parties, and among women of different racial and ethnic groups. Together, they demonstrate that the trend toward gender parity in political leadership is inconsistent and that evaluating progress for women requires attentiveness to differences across party, race and ethnicity, geography, and time.

These outcomes for women came in the midst of a highly-contested presidential election wherein Vice President Kamala Harris (D) competed against former President Donald Trump (R). If successful, Harris – who became just the second woman major-party presidential nominee in U.S. history – would have been the first woman, first Black woman, and first South Asian person to be president of the United States. While neither gender nor race were sole determinants of her defeat, both were influential factors throughout the presidential contest and in ways beyond the identities of each nominee. Among some of the most salient issues were: abortion rights; rights of the transgender community; the promotion or pullback of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies; and regulation of education around gender and racial equity. In addition, candidates at and below the presidential level confronted – and in some cases fostered and leveraged – grievances around perceived gender and race-based threats. The women candidates central to this report’s analysis navigated this gendered and raced terrain of election 2024.

Report Terminology and Methodology: Throughout this report, “candidates” refer to candidates who filed and appeared on primary ballots as well as any candidates who were added to general election ballots to fill vacancies. Candidates who withdrew before any votes were cast and who did not appear on primary ballots are not included. “Nominees” refer to those candidates who appeared on general election ballots. Candidates and nominees for non-voting delegate positions are not included in these analyses, consistent with CAWP’s reporting and calculations of women officeholders. Candidate and nominee counts include only major-party candidates and nominees, with the exception of third-party incumbents and/or winners, and candidates and nominees in non-partisan contests. Any additional unique cases are noted in report text or chart notes. CAWP’s reporting of candidates, nominees, and officeholders by race/ethnicity has evolved over time. Beginning in election 2022, CAWP no longer reports an aggregate number of “women of color” in our data collections on candidates and officeholders and instead provides disaggregated data for all women by race and ethnicity. Because multiracial women are included in counts for each group with which they identify, adding the numbers of women by group will not yield the total number of women of color candidates, nominees, or officeholders. For more information on CAWP’s historic and current collection of race/ethnicity data, please see our methodological statement.