More women than ever ran in the 2026 primaries, and that number was once again driven by Democrats. The partisan gap in nominating women is now roughly three decades old, and the 2026 primaries did little to close it. Today, women make up 43 percent of Democrats in Congress but just 15 percent of Republicans, and 10 of the 14 women currently serving as governor are Democrats. The 2026 primary results echoed this longstanding divide: Women account for nearly half of Democratic primary winners, but fewer than one in five Republican primary winners. The contrast is particularly stark in governors’ races, where women won 19 of 37 Democratic nominations (a majority), compared with just seven of 37 on the Republican side.
After the 2024 cycle, the number of Republican women running fell sharply from its 2022 high — with consequences for their numbers in office. A slightly higher number and share of Republican women ran, and won, in primaries this year, representing a partial, but small, rebound. But both numbers remain below 2022 levels. And as in cycles past, they are especially underrepresented among primary winners in safely Republican districts, where they have the strongest odds of winning a general election. Meanwhile, Democratic women ran in record numbers this cycle, and won in races of all types.
As we have in past cycles, we tracked every major-party candidate for U.S. Senate, House, and governor in 2026, following endorsements by progressive groups, President Donald Trump, and more. This update digs into our data on candidates’ gender, along with endorsements from organizations that recruit women to run, such as EMILYs List (Democratic), Maggie’s List (Republican), and Winning for Women (Republican), to peel back the curtain on where women ran, where they won, and what that tells us about women’s representation in elected office.
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How many women ran, and how many won?
We identified female candidates using lists from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University, which has tracked women running for office for decades. Before the 1990s, both parties ran and nominated women at similar (very low) rates. But since then, Democrats have consistently sent more women to Congress than Republicans, largely because the party built a deliberate pipeline to recruit and fund them, and Democratic voters are more likely to prioritize electing women. These factors reinforce one another: Party investments in female candidates help women win elections, while their electoral success strengthens the case for recruiting and supporting more women.
Both parties saw more women run in the 2026 congressional primaries than they did in 2024: According to CAWP, 434 Democratic women and 221 Republican women ran, compared to 330 and 187 in the previous cycle. That’s the highest number of Democratic women ever to run for Congress, topping the previous high of 393 in 2020. It also meant that around twice the number of Democratic women ran than Republican women this year, or a 2 to 1 ratio. That ratio has increased in recent years: In 2024, it was 1.8 to 1 (330 Democratic women to 187 Republican women), and in 2022 it was 1.2 to 1 (354 to 299).
Altogether, women were 33 percent of Democratic candidates but just 19 percent of Republican candidates on the ballot in 2026 congressional and gubernatorial primary races. And the partisan gender gap widens even more when it comes to the share of women who won their primaries, as Democratic women overperformed their numbers to make up an even larger share of their party’s nominees.
According to our analysis, women make up 45 percent of Democratic primary winners and 18 percent of Republican primary winners for House, Senate, and governors’ races.1 Those numbers are comparable to what we saw in 2024, representing a 1-point decrease in the share of women among Democratic nominees and a 2-point increase in the share of women among Republicans.
Where women were nominated
Winning a nomination is one thing; winning a seat is another. And winning a seat has a lot to do with where a candidate is nominated. As in 2024, Democrats are nominating women in almost every type of race. Women are 45 percent of the party’s nominees in safe Democratic races (106 of 233), where they are all but certain to win, and 48 percent in races rated likely or lean Democratic (22 of 46). That means that more than 125 women are favored to win their general elections. Broadly speaking, Democratic women were also nominated at similar rates in likely, lean, and safe Republican seats where their general-election odds are worse.
Toss-ups represented a bit of an exception, though the sample size is quite small: Only 13 races were rated toss-ups as of October 1, and Democratic women are the nominees in just two of them: Amy Acton, running for governor of Ohio, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, running for governor of Georgia.2
Republican women are a different story. They are 18 to 22 percent of their party’s nominees in safe Democratic, toss-up, and likely or lean Republican races, while they are more scarce in races leaning toward Democrats (15 percent), and in the safest Republican seats (14 percent), where the primary effectively decides who wins.
The number of women running in safe seats for their party matters most when it comes to moving the needle on their numbers in office, and just four of 22 Republican women nominated for safe red seats are non-incumbents. Plus, just two of those — Amanda McKinney in Washington’s 4th District and Jessica Hart Steinmann in Texas’s 8th — would represent genuine new additions. The other two are sitting members running for other offices: Rep. Harriet Hageman is running for Senate in Wyoming, while Sen. Marsha Blackburn is running for governor of Tennessee. Meanwhile, Democratic women are poised to expand their ranks: Of the 106 who are nominated for safe Democratic seats, 25 are non-incumbents.3
How successful were women’s groups in 2026?
Money and endorsements matter enormously for women in primaries, and Republicans have long trailed here. On the Democratic side, backing women is built into the party’s donor and activist networks, anchored by EMILYs List. Republican efforts have still not matched EMILYs List’s scale, money, or influence.
As before, we tracked every candidate endorsed by EMILYs List and by two GOP women’s groups (Maggie’s List, Winning for Women). All together, EMILYs List endorsed 54 women, while Maggie’s List endorsed 43 and Winning for Women endorsed 34.
In contests without an incumbent on the primary ballot, where competition tends to be stiffest and support for women is especially vital, EMILYs List weighed in on more races — 38 in total, compared with 20 for Maggie’s List and 11 for Winning for Women. For all three groups, this represented an uptick in activity compared to 2024, when EMILYs list made 31 endorsements in incumbent-less primaries and the two GOP groups collectively made 14.
But compared with previous years, backing from EMILYs List was a less reliable predictor of success. Of its 38 endorsees in incumbent-less primaries, just 25 won, for a win rate of 66 percent, down considerably from previous cycles. Its list of primary losers included three of its six Senate endorsees: Rep. Jasmine Crockett (lost to James Talarico in Texas), Gov. Janet Mills (lost to Graham Platner, later replaced by Troy Jackson, in Maine), and Rep. Haley Stevens (lost to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan). Also on the list were former Rep. Katie Porter, who failed to advance from California’s top-two primary for governor, and nine House candidates: Stevenson (KY-6), Stanford (PA-03), Obando-Derstine (PA-07), Denney (CA-01), Bains (CA-22), Bird (CO-08), Galán-Woods (AZ-01), Brink (MI-07), and Berg (MN-02).
On the Republican side, Winning for Women and Maggie’s List took different approaches. Winning for Women mostly backed women that President Donald Trump also endorsed — which, as we wrote earlier this week, was one of the surest predictors of success in Republican primaries this year. Of the 11 women the group supported in primaries not featuring an incumbent, nine of them won, for an 82 percent win rate. Within that group, seven also had Trump’s endorsement, and all seven won. Its two losing endorsees were Shelly deZevallos, who made the runoff but lost to Trump endorsee Jon Bonck in Texas’ 38th District by 30 points, and Tricia Pridemore, who finished third in Georgia’s 11th District, where Trump didn’t endorse.
Maggie’s List more often backed women running without Trump’s support or running against a Trump-backed candidate, and its record was weaker: 12 wins in 20 incumbent-less primaries, for a 60 percent win rate. Only seven of its 20 endorsees in these races had Trump’s endorsement, and all seven won. But five others ran against men Trump endorsed, and all five lost. In Texas, Jessica Karlsruher lost in the 10th District to Chris Gober, former Rep. Mayra Flores lost in the 34th to Eric Flores, and Carmen Maria Montiel lost in the 38th District to Jon Bonck. Meanwhile, Hollie Noveletsky lost in New Hampshire’s 1st District to Anthony DiLorenzo, and Vicki Schmidt lost in Kansas’ governor’s primary to Ty Masterson.
The group’s other three losses came in races where Trump stayed out: Madison Sheahan in Ohio’s 9th District, Bea Valenti in Florida’s 14th, and Tiffany Burress, who lost in New Jersey’s 9th to another woman, Rosie Pino.
What does this mean for November?
The 2026 primaries show both parties largely sticking to the paths they were already on. For Democrats, that path has led to hundreds of women candidates running for office, and many nominees who have strong chances to win in November. Democratic women ran in record numbers and won primaries at higher rates than their share of candidates in all types of political territory. So while EMILYs List had a rougher cycle, especially in crowded and high-profile contests, Democratic women still had a strong showing this year.
For Republicans, the rebound from 2024 is small. More Republican women ran, but they still make up less than one in five of their party’s nominees, and they remain especially scarce in open, safe Republican seats, which best position them to expand their numbers in the country’s highest offices. Only a handful of new Republican women are positioned to win such seats this fall.
The Republican women’s groups had a perfect primary endorsement record when their candidates also had Trump’s backing, but lost every time when they backed women running against Trump’s picks. That suggests the path to more Republican women in office runs less through women’s groups than through the president and party leaders, who so far have not made electing women a priority.
None of these challenges means the number of women in office is likely to fall this year. Women are on track to hold on to their record number of governorships, and possibly to gain a seat or two in the Senate. But the gender gap between the parties, now about three decades old, isn’t getting any smaller.
Cooper Burton and Tia Yang contributed research.
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Methodology
Endorsement data for this article and the accompanying dataset was sourced from the official websites of EMILYs List, Winning for Women, and Maggie’s List, as well as Donald Trump’s posts on Truth Social.
Race ratings for individual U.S. House and Senate seats reflect FiftyPlusOne’s forecast ratings, while gubernatorial race ratings were sourced from the Cook Political Report, both as of Oct. 1, 2026. Gender for candidates was sourced from the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.
For this project, we considered an endorsement to be any statement made by Election Day supporting a candidate’s campaign and/or urging people to vote for them in the primary election. We included, with a note, endorsements made after an initial primary but before a runoff election. We did not include any endorsements made after primaries (i.e., general election endorsements).
Candidate information and certified election results were sourced from official state election websites and AP certified election results. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, results were not yet certified, and the dataset includes pre-certified results as of Oct. 3, 2026. The dataset excludes Louisiana’s all-party primaries for U.S. House, which are held on the same day as the general election (Nov. 3, 2026). The dataset includes one special election: South Carolina’s Aug. 11 Republican primary for U.S. Senate, which was precipitated by the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham. That special election determined the GOP candidate for the Nov. 3 general election.
When calculating primary success rates, we included candidates who won their partisan primary or advanced to the November general election. In California and Washington, the top two primary finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election. In Alaska, the top four finishers, regardless of party, advance. In those states, we considered a candidate to be “uncontested” if no other Republican was on the ballot in their primary; candidates who were the only Republican to advance out of the primary to the general election were classified as having “won” their primary, while those who advanced as one of multiple Republicans were classified as having “advanced.” Primary percentages in Maine reflect the results of the first round of ranked-choice voting.
We classified candidates as incumbents if they were actively serving in the same position they were running for at the time of their primary, including U.S. House members who ran in a different district than their current one.
Historical endorsement data was sourced from FiveThirtyEight’s public datasets.
Footnotes
We define winning as a candidate winning their partisan primary or advancing to the general election. In California and Washington state, the top two vote-getters regardless of party move on to the general election. In Alaska, the top four vote-getters move on, regardless of party. Our dataset excludes Louisiana’s all-party primaries for U.S. House, which will be held on Nov. 3, 2026.
Since we finalized our dataset on Oct. 1 and as of publication, the Cook Political Report has moved Acton’s contest to “Lean Democrat.” Meanwhile, FiftyPlusOne’s forecast has moved each of the House contests in CO-05 and FL-22 from “Lean Democrat” to “Toss-Up” and the House contest in OH-10 from "Lean Republican" to "Toss-Up," which adds Democratic nominees Jessica Killin, Pia Dandiya, and Kristina Knickerbocker to this category.
One is a sitting member of Congress running for another office: Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is running for governor of Minnesota.
