According to our readers, don’t expect to see a female Senator or Governor emerge anytime soon.
In the wake of the defeats of Allyson Schwartz and Marjorie Margolies, a debate developed over whether gender played a role in their election night loses.
The duel results made it possible that no women would be a part of the PA congressional delegation next year. Additionally, Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight noted that Pennsylvania was one of only 14 states to never elect a female Senator or Governor.
So, we decided to ask our readers what they thought and the results are not encouraging to those women who are seeking the state’s highest offices.
In a very close race, “8-11 years” was chosen as the most likely timeframe for a woman to win one of those two positions. That range narrowly edged out “4-7 years” by a razor-thin 161-160 margin.
“12 years or more” came in a close third with 147 votes while “0-3 years” finished dead last with 88.
The full results are included below:
When will PA have a female Governor or Senator?
- 8-11 years (29%)
- 4-7 years (29%)
- 12 years or more (26%)
- 0-3 years (16%)
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4 Responses
The situation for women candidates is horrible in Pennsylvania, especially in the Democratic Party. While I agree that poor campaigns have been run by some Democratic women candidates in this state, some very good ones have also been run by women as well — and the woman candidate still far too often loses to an old boy.
One need only look at the General Assembly to see how horribly underrepresented women are in Pennsylvania. According to Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics, our General Assembly currently has only a little over 17% women and that includes members of both parties. This is lower than the legislatures of Texas and Kentucky, and only one place above Mississippi. Again it’s horrible and it’s likely to get worse in the next election. For even though the HDCC and others boast that record numbers of women are running in 2014, how many women candidates are actually being supported? Hmm… for an answer perhaps we should look to the Allegheny County Democratic Party supporting the old-thinking creepy undertaker Harry Readshaw and ousting Erin Molchany. She was one of the few Democratic women in the PA House and one of the best young legislators of either sex.
When you look at numbers of women elected to county and local offices in Pennsylvania, the farm team/training ground for higher-level candidates, this situation gets even worse. Far too many counties and local municipalities have governing boards that are 100% male, or close to it.
Until the old boys in the Democratic Party including the HDCC and House Leadership TRULY start supporting women candidates at all levels, instead of giving lip service to the issue, things are unlikely to change.
In the meantime, anyone wonder why women voters stay home from the polls?
It’s possible a lot of people misread this question. We’ll have a female senator in 2 years.
I agree. I don’t think gender was a primary factor when you look at the shoddy campaigns both ran.
Two candidates who should never have run–and had the poor campaigns to prove it–cannot be taken as representatives of an entire gender.