Our takeaways from the midterms

Your definitive guide to women, politics and power.

Nov 11, 2022 View in browser   By Katelyn Fossett POLITICO illustration/Photos by Getty Images, iStock Good morning, rulers! Welcome back. It's been an exciting election week. Thanks to Sophie Gardner for her help with this newsletter! On Tuesday, talk of a red wave crashed into a decidedly less triumphant Election Day for Republicans. While many races are still too close to call, Republicans are likely to take the House, and the Senate will come down to a few contested states. The stakes for women couldn't have been higher: One of the key motivating factors this campaign season was abortion rights, which likely fueled a surge in voter registration among women. It was also a pivotal moment for women in politics, as a record number of women governors were elected. While all of the results are still being parsed, here are the big takeaways that we here at Women Rule noticed this week and what we're still keeping an eye on. BIG WINS FOR ABORTION RIGHTS — There's no doubt about it: This week made it clear that abortion rights are popular. Vermont and California saw their abortion rights ballot measures succeed, but the two more interesting cases were in Kentucky and Michigan. In Michigan, a swing state, a proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution passed. Even more surprising: In Kentucky, a red state, a proposed amendment that would have clarified the constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion failed. Abortion rights also powered Democratic wins up and down the ballot, defying some pundits' expectations that ultimately abortion wouldn't be a key issue for voters on Election Day. In Pennsylvania and Michigan, both swing states, Democrats at all levels of government won after campaigns supporting abortion rights. Now, as Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly report for POLITICO, abortion-rights advocates are already using the midterm results to push Democrats in Washington and around the country to pursue bolder strategies to protect access to the procedure. Read more in POLITICO . And read more about the Michigan voters who were very motivated by the abortion issue here , also by Alice Miranda Ollstein. A RECORD NUMBER OF WOMEN GOVERNORS -- At least 12 women will serve as governor in 2023, a new record. The previous record was nine, set in 2004. In Massachusetts, Democrat Maura Healey is the first openly gay person to be elected to the position, and she and her lieutenant-governor-elect, Kim Driscoll, are one of the first all-woman pairs in the offices. In Arkansas, Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor-elect, will be one half of another such pair with Lieutenant Governor-elect Leslie Rutledge. Sanders will also be the first daughter of a former governor to hold the same position. Read about some of those firsts here . Both parties made electing more women governors a goal in 2022. Read more about that strategy here , from POLITICO's Liz Crampton. FEWER WOMEN IN CONGRESS (AS OF NOW) -- As of this writing, 135 women will serve in Congress beginning in 2023, according to Rutgers University's tracker . That is down from the current number of 147. Several races with women candidates have yet to be called, but still, it's very possible that the number of women in Congress could decline. Several vulnerable candidates were women who flipped seats in 2018 and thus had a rough path to a win this cycle, according to Fivethirtyeight. Read more background on why women in Congress had a tougher year here .   Sponsored by Business Leader members of Women Rule: The Exchange: What if we could reshape society to benefit everyone equally? POLITICO Focus connected with members of Women Rule: The Exchange to learn about how women are remaking communities into sustainable, healthy and inclusive places. Join the Conversation.   POLITICO Special Report Leigh Vogel/Getty Images " This diverse class of state executives were the stars of the midterms ," by Marissa Martinez, Lisa Kashinsky and Brakkton Booker for Politico: "The first woman and first openly gay person elected governor. The first Black woman elected attorney general. The first all-female governor and lieutenant governor team." "And those are just the firsts for Massachusetts." "Glass ceilings shattered across the country this week as voters from New England to the South propelled women and people of color to prominent positions in state government for the first time. Women were elected governor of Massachusetts, New York and Arkansas for the first time, with a record 11 total women set to be sworn in as their state's top executive next year. Massachusetts and Arkansas will be the first states in the nation to have women serving as both governor and lieutenant governor come January. Maryland elected its first Black governor — just the third elected in the nation's history. And results are still rolling in." "'The more people we have from different backgrounds in high-profile leadership roles, the more diversity of ideas and experience we'll see at the table,' Amanda Hunter, executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which studies women in politics, said in an interview. 'And having these qualified people be the strongest candidates for the job in their state in and of itself breaks down long-held stereotypes.'" " A predicted 'red wave' crashed into wall of abortion rights support on Tuesday ," by Alice Miranda Ollstein and Megan Messerly for POLITICO: "A surge in turnout among people motivated by the erosion of abortion rights carried Democrats to victory in races for governor, Senate, attorney general and state legislatures — defying predictions that the issue had faded for voters in the months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade." "Tuesday's results likely ensure that millions of people will be able to legally terminate a pregnancy going forward — and bolster progressives' arguments that reproductive rights is a winning issue that Democrats and their allies should pursue aggressively in the years ahead." "There are lessons here for 2024 that I hope the administration will take to heart," said Morgan Hopkins, the leader of All* Above All, an abortion-rights advocacy group. 'We showed up, especially young voters of color, in record numbers. Now, we need these elected officials to show up for us.'" "The abortion-rights campaign also prevailed in ballot measure fights in swing states like Michigan and GOP strongholds like Kentucky, while candidates up and down the ballot in Pennsylvania benefited from voters concerned with preserving access." "Soaring inflation, which preelection polls showed was, by far, the most important issue for voters, just barely outpaced abortion in exit polls, 31 percent to 27 percent, according to the National Election Pool exit poll, conducted by Edison Research. And about 60 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied or angry with the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to both that exit poll and AP Votecast." "Citing these results, abortion-rights advocates who have been frustrated with the Biden administration's cautious response to the fall of Roe v. Wade wasted no time in pushing Democratic leaders in Washington, D.C., and around the country to pursue bolder policies to protect the procedure going forward, arguing it's not the political risk many believed it to be." Number of the Week Read more here . MUST READS Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images "Why Direct Democracy Is Proving So Powerful for Protecting Abortion Rights," by Rachel Rebouché and Mary Ziegler in the Atlantic: The news for abortion rights in Tuesday's midterm election was stunning. In five states— California , Kentucky , Montana, Michigan , and Vermont —voters went to the polls and either rejected an anti-abortion measure or added abortion rights to their state constitution. Just months earlier, Kansas, a conservative state with a history of intense anti-abortion activism, shocked the country by voting to protect state abortion rights by a significant margin. "The lesson here goes beyond the unpopularity of many abortion restrictions. With the reversal of Roe v. Wade, people have looked primarily to political parties to defend abortion rights (or undo them)—and have come to expect outcomes that break cleanly along partisan lines. The results of these latest ballot measures suggest that we've underestimated the abortion-rights protections that direct democracy—not party politics—can produce. The fact is that disentangling questions about abortion from political affiliation may provide one of the best ways to protect or to restore abortion access in red and purple states, at least in the short run. "Lessons on how and why can be gleaned from an effort that took place an ocean away: Ireland's 2018 campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which had, since 1983, recognized fetal rights and thus banned abortion. In subsequent years, the country was repeatedly chastised by the European Court of Human Rights for violating the human rights of women, but it was able to resist many demands for change by insisting that the country had democratically established its strong consensus in favor of fetal rights. In reality, support for legal abortion grew over the years, fueled, in part, by outrage over the death of Savita Halappanavar , a woman who died of sepsis after being refused an abortion following an incomplete miscarriage . "At the risk of oversimplifying the comparison, in certain respects our post-Roe country already resembles Ireland under the Eighth Amendment. Travel to procure abortions was common among Irish women—prior to 2018, as many as 3,000 traveled to Britain each year to end a pregnancy . Others took abortion medication, even though Irish law made doing so a crime." " All the unpaid labor women did during the COVID recession might have saved us from an economic crisis ," by Rebecca Gale for Yahoo Finance " What the Success of Women-Led Protests Tell Us About Iran's Future ," by Yasmeen Serhan for TIME: "The traditional mourning period in Iran lasts 40 days. Since the widespread national protests began nearly two months ago following the death of Mahsa Amini—the young Kurdish Iranian woman who fell into a coma after being allegedly beaten by Tehran's so-called 'morality police' over her purported failure to properly veil her hair—the period of mourning in the country hasn't ceased . At least 328 Iranians have died in the protests, according to the Tehran-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA)." "But what began as an outpouring of grief over Amini's death has evolved into a transformative national movement. The predominantly women- and youth-led demonstrations and their clarion call for ' woman, life, liberty ' have touched nearly every corner of Iranian society. Despite the violent crackdowns by Iranian security forces resulting in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests, there are no signs of the movement's momentum abating anytime soon." "That protests principally led by and for women could persist for this long would have been previously unthinkable in Iran, which has for decades been ruled under the iron fist of its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The country is one of the world's worst performing countries for gender parity. While Iranian women have a long history of political activism and mobilization in the country, they rarely feature at the center of those movements. Today, Iranian women are not only at the forefront of the ongoing protests, but they are also behind its central demands—namely, the downfall of the regime." "But the centrality of women in these protests matter for reasons that go beyond representation or equality. That's because, according to scholars of civil resistance, high levels of women participation tend to make mass movements more inclusive, innovative, nonviolent, and, crucially, more likely to achieve their goals. The prevailing question facing Iran is whether these protests will prove to be representative of, or the exception to, that rule." " Ela Bhatt, Advocate for Women Workers in India, Dies at 89 ," by Sameer Yasir for the New York Times   Sponsored by Business Leader members of Women Rule: The Exchange: In the Round: A conversation with today's leaders.   QUOTE OF THE WEEK Read more here . TRANSITIONS Robin McGahey is joining the British Embassy in the U.S. as the chief communications officer for public diplomacy. She was previously at Freedom House and the Truman National Security Project. (h/t Nat Sec Daily). … Katrina Chan has joined the British Embassy in the U.S. as social secretary for the ambassador. (h/t Playbook) Victoria Vinall started on Monday as press secretary at the Council on Environmental Quality at the White House. She most recently was deputy press secretary at the Department of Energy and is a Biden campaign alum. Roya Rahmani and Julián Ventura are joining Albright Stonebridge Group as senior advisors. Rahmani is vice chair for public policy at Delphos and the former Afghan ambassador to the U.S. Ventura is the former Mexican deputy secretary of foreign affairs. … Angelika Pellegrino is now deputy comms director for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). She previously was American Rescue Plan outreach coordinator at the U.S. Economic Development Administration. (h/t Playbook)   Sponsored by Business Leader members of Women Rule: The Exchange: As indispensable members of the workforce, champions of civic engagement, and powerful consumers, women support and invest in the communities they inhabit. However, with racial injustice, major disparities in health care, steeper corporate ladders and more, it's easy to question if their communities are reciprocating. But what if we could reshape society to benefit everyone equally? Women would run for office in higher numbers. Health care treatments would be more accessible. Cities and systems would be designed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. We know what our communities could be. But how do we pursue the paths to achieve it? POLITICO Focus sat down with members of Women Rule: The Exchange to create a blueprint for movements and transformation — and a roadmap to a reimagined future. Read on to learn how women are remaking communities into places that are sustainable, healthy and inclusive.     Follow us on Twitter Katelyn Fossett @KatelynFossett   Follow us

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