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By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – For congressional Republicans, this month's elections ushered in the woman's year – literally.
Carol Miller of West Virginia will be the only Republican woman to enter the House of 435 as a newcomer in January. It will join what may be the smallest group of legislators in the House of Representatives since the early 90s – just 13 out of 199 Republicans at least. Democrats will have at least 89.
Numbers like these have Republicans looking for answers to the glaring gender disparity in their ranks – and fast. The concern is that the unbalanced advantage of the Democrats among the voters can be postponed until 2020, when President Donald Trump will seek a second term and control of the House and Senate will be effective. If the current trend continues, Republicans may be called parties of men.
"You will see a very important recruitment effort" for the candidates, said David Winston, a pollster who advises GOP Congress leaders. "It's a natural conclusion, you have to create an environment where it can be a success."
Proof of the gap between GOP men and women was equally clear in the 100-member Senate, where Tennessee representative Marsha Blackburn would be the only Republican freshman. If Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith wins a second round later this month, there will be seven women in the Republican-run Senate. But even this record represents less than half of the class of 17 female Democrats, which includes two freshmen.
The search for answers leads to familiar places. President Donald Trump's many stories with women, combined with the #MeToo anti-sexual harassment movement, helped motivate Democratic women to run for office, but did not seem to have the same effect as GOP women, according to politicians and analysts. More generally, the president's shameless style is not suitable for many women voters or potential candidates.
"Women do not like tweets," said Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a moderate GOP group. "I do not know how to soften the rhetoric, if I could have a fantasy, a wish, that would be my wish."
On polling day, Democrat women supported Democratic candidates for repressive elections from 57 percent to 41 percent, according to AP VoteCast, an extensive survey of the electorate by the Associated Press. Women beat similar margins in the crucial suburbs, where democrat victories in inner city neighborhoods contributed to the gains they needed to gain control of the House. Men supported Republicans compared to Democrats, 51% to 46%.
Strategists note that the problem does not only concern current personalities; it is festive infrastructure.
"As a party, we need to recruit candidates from candidates who can become a high priority," said Andrea Bozek, spokesperson for Winning for Women, a nascent GOP group that is trying to support Republican candidates. She added, "Unless politicians really make it a priority, I do not think that will happen."
A record number of women came to the House as candidates for the main parties this year. However, according to AP data, Democrats were nearly three times as likely as Republicans, and Democratic women were more likely to win their primaries.
Of the contenders who ran in November, 183 were Democrats, the highest number, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. Fifty-two were Republicans, a record, but a fraction of women Democrats who show up.
This partisan imbalance was compounded by Democrats' superior campaign infrastructure to help the candidates.
Winning for Women, created in early 2017, claims to have spent more than $ 1 million helping women candidates in recent elections. This group and other support groups for women candidates could not compete with the list of Democrats Emily's List, a well-funded organization that spends tens of millions of dollars on primaries and general elections and provides Recruitment, training and other services to candidates.
"Democrats do a lot better at getting women elected," said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics.
Asked to explain her success against the defeats of other candidates, Miller of West Virginia sent an email congratulating Trump, as well as other groups of Republican women and the GOP group, asserting that "the special interests of the liberals" had agreed to defeat republican women. White House and GOP officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Republicans have shown this year a sensitivity to their vast majority of men. This includes hiring a prosecutor to interrogate Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh's chief accuser, during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and her exclusively male Republicans.
A few days after the elections, Republicans encouraged women to hold leadership positions in Congress.
Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, will be the 3rd GOP leader in the House of Representatives next year, the highest Republican woman in her chamber nowadays. Senator Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, will serve as vice-chair of the GOP Senate Senate, a junior position, making her the first Republican woman to hold a leadership position in the Senate for the past eight years.
Cheney said Republicans needed to make it clear that their policies on national security, the economy and health care were best for men and women. She called it "fundamentally offensive and paternalistic" to think that women's votes are motivated by their gender.
Asked about CBS's "Face the Nation" program last week to find out if Trump's rhetoric was alienating women, Ernst said, "We could do a better job by making it clear that we support women."
Hannah Fingerhut and Laurie Kellman, Associate Press editors, contributed to this report.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, disseminated, rewritten or redistributed.
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