Surge in Female Candidates To Take On Trump’s Agenda
EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock has reported that more than 15,000 women have reached out to the organization about running for office.
The unprecedented number of potential women candidates marks a huge increase from the 2016 cycle, when 920 women talked to EMILY’s List about potential electoral bids.
Democrats have seen an influx of people signaling an interest in public office for federal and local positions since Trump won the 2016 presidential election, and EMILY’s List has been no exception to that.
“We look at this not just as our crop of candidates for 2018, because they’re not all going to run right away,” Schriock said. “This is an extraordinary pipeline of future candidates for the next decade.”
EMILY’s List is expected to hold nearly 20 trainings across the country in its “Run To Win” program that will help potential candidates prepare and launch campaigns. They’re targeting more than 80 seats for recruitment, though they acknowledge that they might not find candidates for every seat.
“Women are only 19 percent of Congress and if we don’t push through these primaries, we do not change these numbers, so we intend to be pretty active in a number of primaries,” Schriock added.
[image via screenshot]
