n WOMEN IN POLITICS
lican politics. … We have lost our way, and it’s killing any op-
portunity for political balance and thoughtful debate in Cali-
fornia, elements that good public policy relies on,” she wrote.
Party officials largely agree with the assessment that bigger
forces are driving the numbers down, and defenders say they
did try to support women in 2018. GOP groups spent heavily in
the midterms to try to protect Walters’ congressional seat. Kim
also narrowly lost her bid for a Southern California seat. In the
state Legislature, Sen. Janet Nguyen’s failed re-election bid was
one of the most hotly contested races of the year.
“They lost because of other trends that had nothing to do
with them being a Republican woman,” Cynthia Bryant, ex-
ecutive director of the California Republican Party, says. “It’s
unfortunate. They were running in tough, competitive seats.”
Bryant and others say the GOP is doing what it can to put
women in power. Women currently lead the GOP caucuses in
both chambers of the state Legislature. Patterson specifical-
ly called out the need to recruit qualified women when she
announced her bid for state party chair this winter. She has
also led California Trailblazers, a political group backed by
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy that aims to support
younger, more diverse GOP candidates.
The surge in female candidates on the left has been buoyed
by outside groups and movements, like Emily’s List, that train
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women to run, and then in some cases spend millions on their
behalf to help get them through the finish lines. Several simi-
lar organizations are active on the state level here. Rival efforts
focused on GOP women are few and far between. Pye says that
has to change.
“If and when the Republican Party gets serious about
electing women, we will do a bit of a stealing of a page from
the playbooks of the Democrats,” she says. “We’ve got to be
honest about ourselves about who can run and who will run.”
Pye stresses the need for the party and its allies to go be-
yond lip service, focusing on training and supporting women
who have what she calls the three C’s of a strong campaign: a
candidate, cash to fund the race, and city or county experi-
ence that can help make the case to voters that you know how
to govern.
She has tried to help fill that gap in her role as president
of California Women Lead. The nonpartisan nonprofit seeks
to recruit and train women of all political stripes for elected
office at all levels and political appointments. But given the
current gender parity gap, the group plans to double down on
opportunities to recruit moderate, business-oriented women
to run for swing seats in the state Legislature. Multiple fac-
tors, including the dwindling numbers for Republicans as a
whole and an unwillingness to be associated with the current