Advertisement
Big Gains In 2012 For Female Candidates
Americans are still digesting the results — and the significance — of Tuesday's election, but one big theme that has emerged is that female candidates made big gains. That was true in a big way here in Massachusetts, where voters elected Elizabeth Warren to become the state's first female U.S. Senator.
Four other states — Nebraska, Hawaii, North Dakota and Wisconsin — also elected women for the first time to the U.S. Senate. Come January, the Senate will have 20 women among its members, the highest number ever. The U.S. House of Representatives will have at least 77 women, an increase of four.
And on Tuesday, New Hampshire became the first state to elect women to all of it's top political positions: the governorship, both Senate seats and both of its Congressional seats.
We discuss what all this means for women in politics.
Guests:
- Shannon O'Brien, former Mass. treasurer, first woman to be elected to a state-wide office in Mass. She ran for governor against Mitt Romney in 2002 and lost
- Victoria Budson, executive director of the Harvard Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program
More:
This segment aired on November 8, 2012. The audio for this segment is not available.