For GOP women in politics, a needle that's not moving

The president of Emily's List rose to the podium at a recent New York fundraiser to make an announcement: More than 18,000 women had contacted the group since Election Day, looking to explore running for office -- "an explosion," she called it.

Of course, they're all Democrats. On the Republican side, there's been no such explosion. While a tide of anti-Donald Trump activism has led thousands of Democratic women to consider runs for office, their Republican counterparts are where they were before the 2016 election -- with little chance of improving their representation.

"Republican women look very much the same now as they did pre-Trump," said Jennifer Lawless, professor at American University and co-author of a recent report that examined the persistent gender gap in political ambition, on both sides of the aisle. "They're generally not interested in running for office, the overwhelming majority has not been recruited to run, they don't think they're qualified to run and their levels of political activity and enthusiasm are the same as they have always been."

Lawless' report, called "The Trump Effect," also throws some cold water on the expectation Democrats will see a seismic shift in numbers of women running; re-energized political activism doesn't necessarily translate into candidacies. But the new enthusiasm has been almost entirely on the left side of the spectrum, and some groups are trying to address that.

Erin Loos Cutraro, CEO of She Should Run, a nonpartisan group, said while the overall pace of adding women to elected office is too slow -- women, after all, comprise just under 20 percent of Congress -- it's clearly happening faster for Democrats.

Part of the problem: uneven institutional resources and support. "Feeling that you're not going at it alone makes a big difference," Cutraro said, "and it can feel really isolating for Republican women. They don't have the same networks, just in sheer numbers ... or the same level of institutional support. If you're a Democratic pro-choice woman, and you have Emily's List there to support you, that can be incredibly powerful. Republican women don't have anything that plays at the same level."

While a group such as Emily's List lends concrete support to get a candidate over the finish line, She Should Run serves women seeking that first step.

"'I don't even know where to start' is something we hear over and over," Cutraro said.

Rebecca Love is one of those women. A longtime Republican -- she was even president of the Republican club in high school -- Love, 38, woke up at home in San Diego the morning after Election Day wanting to get involved, somehow.

"I felt that my values as a Republican woman were not represented by the candidate who was elected," said Love, who has a young daughter and works in health-care consulting. "I felt Republicans were better than this. It was a wakeup call."

So Love began Googling programs for women interested in politics. Most, she found, were for Democrats -- and her experience had been even groups calling themselves nonpartisan were populated mostly by Democrats, some not eager to engage with Republicans. Finally, Love, who identifies as a pro-abortion rights, moderate Republican, started working with She Should Run. She's learning the political landscape of her community, and expects to pursue a city council seat or something similar.

By now, Love said, she feels confident enough that she doesn't need to be "asked" to run. But she meets women who do: "I say to them, 'You should think about running,' and they say, 'Me?'"

Virtually any advocate working to get women into politics will say the same thing: Much more than men, women -- of any party -- need to be asked to run.

Julie Conway of VIEW PAC, which works to get Republican women elected to federal office, puts it this way: "You have to tell women, 'Hey, you'd be great,' and not only that, but you'd be the best, and now I'm going to have 10 other people tell you you're the best. Guys just say, 'Hey, I could do this.'"