ATLANTA — One look at the slates of Republican and Democratic candidates running for statewide office this year highlights an obvious difference beyond their political platforms.
There are eight female Democratic nominees on Georgia’s general election ballot and zero women representing the GOP.
The absence of women on the Republican ticket isn’t due to lack of effort: Two women ran for governor, and one ran for lieutenant governor. None pulled in more than 8% of the primary vote.
Jeanne Seaver, a Republican who finished last in a four-way GOP race for lieutenant governor, said it was difficult to break through in a race where she was competing against two wealthy male state senators with years of electoral experience. State Sen. Burt Jones won the nomination.
“There is not a lot of support out there for women to run, but there’s a lot of them out there helping the good ol’ boys,” she said.
According to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in the past 20 years, 52 Democratic women have run in statewide elections — including for the U.S. Senate, governor and the Public Service Commission — and 27 of those women have won their party’s nomination. Only one of those women have won the seat they were seeking when Cathy Cox was elected secretary of state in 1998.
During that same period, on the Republican side, 22 women offered themselves up for statewide office, and seven won the nomination of their party. Three have won the general election — including Tricia Pridemore four years ago, who serves on the PSC. Before that, the last Republican woman to win the nomination in a statewide race was Karen Handel in 2006. She also won the general election and served as secretary of state.
Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler, a Republican, to the U.S. Senate in 2019 to complete the term of U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, who retired due to illness. Loeffler advanced to the runoff but ultimately was unable to win the 2020 election to keep her seat.
There are Libertarian candidates in eight of the 11 races this year. One is a woman.
Amy Steigerwalt, a Georgia State University political science professor who wrote a 2018 book titled “Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office,” said studies suggest Republicans are more likely to have traditional views of women.
Difficulty getting leadership experience
The phenomenon isn’t limited to statewide races.
Republican women, and some Democratic women as well, who serve in the state Legislature have shared stories over the years about potential voters asking them who was watching their children while they campaigned or assumed their husband was the candidate seeking office.
There are relatively few Republican women in the state Legislature, which has 236 members. Of the 80 women serving in the General Assembly, 19 are Republican — 17 in the House and two in the Senate.
Among the House’s 41 committees, women chair only seven. In the Senate, they lead three of 29. No woman, Democrat or Republican, has ever led the Legislature’s most influential panels: Appropriations, Rules, and Ways and Means.
Currently, the highest-ranking woman in the Georgia Legislature is state Rep. Jan Jones, R-Milton, who in 2010 made history when she was tapped as House speaker pro tem, the chamber’s No. 2 position.
Many of the Republican men who’ve served in Georgia’s statewide offices once the GOP took control of government had years of experience serving in public office before ascending to the top of the ticket. For example, Sonny Perdue spent 10 years in the Georgia Senate, serving as majority leader and president pro tem of the chamber, before running for governor in 2002.
The power of being in a leadership position also makes it easier to fundraise for campaigns because donors are already familiar with you and eager to give money. When women have not held powerful positions, it makes it more difficult to raise the money necessary for running a statewide campaign unless they are independently wealthy, like Loeffler.
“Money helps,” Seaver said. “If I would have had the money, even a couple hundred thousand, I could have done a heck of a lot better.”
Seaver raised about $50,000 during her campaign. In contrast, Jones raised about $2.1 million and loaned his campaign an additional $2 million, according to filings submitted before the May primary.
Seeking support
Steigerwalt said voters surveyed in a study found that most people supported the idea of women running for office.
“But those women who identified as Republican were much less likely to report that anyone had ever suggested to them that they should run for office, that they were recruited to run for office or that people talked with them that it was something they should think about, especially as compared to Democratic women in the same survey,” she said.
Julianne Thompson, a Republican strategist, said while there are some people who believe women should serve in certain roles and men in others, she said the biggest reason women aren’t winning statewide primary races is due to a lack of targeted candidate recruitment.
“I talk to so many women who do want to run for public office but say, ‘I want to know that the support structure is there once I do,’ ” Thompson said. “I think to a lot of women, especially Republican women, we’ve heard time and time again, ‘Well, it’s not about the gender of the person that’s running, it’s about who’s the best person for the job.’ Well, who’s the best person for the job doesn’t always win.”
Sarah Riggs Amico, the 2018 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor and a U.S. Senate hopeful two years ago, said her party’s slate more closely aligns with what Georgia looks like. She said Republican policies, culture and lack of recruitment probably keep women from wanting to run for office.
“I imagine it’s a very difficult pitch to women right now to carry the Republican banner because so many issues that the GOP gets wrong disproportionately harm and affect women — whether it’s ending their ability to make their own reproductive health choices ... or whether it’s working to make sure that no matter the ZIP code, all Georgians have access to a quality education,” she said.
‘That day is over’
Georgia GOP Chairman David Shafer said the party focuses on recruiting candidates in “marginal” races. The party, he said, remains neutral in primary races.
Shafer said while there were few women seeking a statewide office on the Republican ticket this year, they have historically had women run and win those seats.
The first woman elected to statewide office in Georgia was Republican Linda Schrenko in 1994, who served as superintendent of schools for two terms. Pridemore, a Republican, is the only woman currently holding a statewide elected office, though PSC positions are divided by district. She was initially appointed to the PSC by Gov. Nathan Deal.
“Republicans have had more success electing women to statewide office in large part because we have run better candidates,” Shafer said. “The first woman elected to statewide office was a Republican. The only woman today in statewide office is a Republican. The only women to serve as state school superintendent have been Republicans.”
Democrats have touted the diversity on their ticket: five Black women, an Asian American woman, two white women, three Black men and a white man. All 11 Republican statewide nominees are men, and all but three are white — two Black men and one Hispanic man are running.
House Democratic Leader James Beverly of Macon said Republican men have created a culture that says women shouldn’t lead.
“I think that Republican men have shown who they are and they will trample over the rights of women in the blink of an eye,” he said. “But that is not the future: For Republican men to continue to control the destiny of Georgia, that day is over.”
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