Rep. Mai Xiong, center, is a Democrat who won a special election in Michigan’s 13th state House district this year and is on the ballot again running for a full term. She hopes her work balancing lawmaking with raising children inspires other moms to run for office. Courtesy photo.

by Lauren Gibbons (Bridge Michigan)

Women candidates in Michigan have made historic gains in recent election cycles, sweeping statewide offices and boosting numbers in the state Legislature.

But with the Nov. 5 election fast approaching, advocates say their hopes for a women-majority Legislature may have to wait as they instead seek to hold ground this cycle.

“Unless we can put more effort into intentionally recruiting women into all open seats … then it’s going to be harder to see women’s representation continue to rise in Michigan,” said Cee Maul, the Michigan director of Vote Run Lead Action, a nonprofit focused on recruiting and training progressive women candidates for office.

Women comprise a little over half of the U.S. population, but only one state, Nevada, has ever had a female-majority legislature. Congress currently has the highest-ever percentage of women representatives serving — but 72% of members are still men.

In Michigan, voters made history in 2018 by electing women to all three statewide offices — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, all Democrats. All three were re-elected in 2022, when colleagues also chose Democrat Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids to be the state’s first female Senate Majority Leader.

Michigan is closer than most states to achieving gender parity, an analysis from the group RepresentWomen found. Across state, federal and local offices, Michigan ranked third in the nation for highest gender parity for women in elected office in RepresentWomen’s latest report, which periodically tracks gender representation among U.S. officeholders.

About 40% of Michigan lawmakers serving this session are women: 15 of 38 senators are women, while there are 44 women, one nonbinary member and 65 men in the House.

Of the 219 major party state legislative candidates running in Michigan’s 2024 general election, 36.5% are women, and major party women candidates are on the ticket in 61% of state legislative races, a Bridge Michigan analysis found. Women candidates are representing both major parties in 13 districts.

It would take 17 more women to reach a majority-female legislature across both chambers and seven to achieve that goal in the House, the only chamber up for election this year. Either outcome is unlikely in the 2024 cycle, observers say.

Several incumbent women candidates are also facing heated challenges from men in competitive political districts, meaning the overall number could fluctuate depending on election outcomes.

Though chances are higher in 2026, when both the House and Senate are up for grabs, it could still take a few election cycles to achieve gender parity — more if political operatives and leaders don’t take an active role in encouraging and supporting prospective women candidates on both sides of the aisle, said Maul, of Vote Run Lead Action.

Democratic women, moms see gains

By several measures, Michigan is ahead of the pack when it comes to women’s political representation.

Democratic women are nearing or surpassing parity within their state legislative caucuses around the country, and Rutgers University’s Center for American Women in Politics found that Democratic women candidates this cycle won state House primaries at higher rates than Democratic men and Republican candidates of any gender.

That holds true in Michigan, where women lawmakers currently make up the majority of both House and Senate Democratic caucuses. In state legislative races, Democratic women candidates on general election ballots slightly outnumber Democratic men, with women representing Democrats on the ticket in 56 out of 110 races.

An analysis from the Vote Mama Foundation, a group tracking mothers’ participation in political office, also found that the Michigan Legislature ranks fourth in the nation for representation of mothers with minor children at 13.5%, well above the national average of 7.9%.

That’s likely in part because Michigan has a full-time Legislature where elected lawmakers are paid a competitive annual salary, making it a more reliable career choice for working moms, Vote Mama Foundation founder and CEO Liuba Grechen Shirley told Bridge Michigan.

Though barriers still exist — such as access to affordable childcare, long commutes to the Capitol, complicated schedules requiring late nights and in-person voting and lack of paid family leave — Shirley said getting more women with kids in elected positions begets new policies better suited to their needs while bringing diverse perspectives to state government.

“It’s not a system that was set up for working moms — it’s a system that was set up for white, wealthy, land-owning men,” she said. “We need to modernize our state legislatures if we want people who look like the rest of us.”

Rep. Mai Xiong, D-Warren, is one of the latest moms of young children to successfully run for the Legislature, winning a competitive primary to replace former Rep. Lori Stone in a special election earlier this year.

Xiong, a mom of four and the first Hmong American elected to the Michigan Legislature, said when she first started working in local government, she’d often get remarks about how higher office would be too difficult because she’d have to be away from her children for long stretches of time.

But when the opportunity came up, she said she took it, in part, so her kids could see someone who looked like them in a position of power. When babysitters have fallen through, they come with her to Lansing.

“I have to do it for my children. I have to do it for my community,” Xiong said. “It is very exciting to see more women running for office, because we’re doing more for other families. We understand the stakes.”

Room for growth

Gains for women officeholders in Michigan and nationally haven’t been equal across party lines.

Across the U.S., a recent Center for American Women in Politics analysis found that while women make up 37.6% of all state House nominees in the 2024 general election, they account for nearly 50% of all Democratic candidates and 25.4% of Republican candidates.

In Michigan, 22% of Republican state legislative candidates are women.

Part of the discrepancy is a comparative lack of organized support for Republican women candidates, Debbie Walsh, the center’s director, said in a recent press conference, as well as philosophical party differences about identity politics.

Democratic organizations and outside groups have taken an active role in recruiting, funding and supporting progressive-leaning women candidates, Walsh said, while “resources are simply not there in the same way” for Republican women running for office.

“When we look ahead to 2025, these numbers don’t suggest any significant rise in Republican women’s representation, something that is necessary if we are serious about achieving gender parity in our political institutions,” Walsh said.

Republican women lawmakers in Michigan who spoke with Bridge said they feel the disparity acutely and are doing what they can to encourage fellow conservative women to consider future political careers.

Rep. Donni Steele, R-Lake Orion, whose own path to local and state politics started with advocating for safer bike paths, said conservative women are “clearly the minority voice” in Michigan government, despite playing active roles in their communities, setting budgets and navigating local school systems — all skills that would serve them well in government.

“I noticed that from the beginning,” she said, noting anecdotally that many conservative women she’s spoken with who are capable of running for higher office are “so conservative, even in their perspective of their own gifts.”

Michigan Republicans have an opportunity to increase the number of women lawmakers this cycle, both through women who won primaries in open GOP-leaning districts and in competitive districts where conservative women are challenging Democratic incumbents, Rep. Rachelle Smit, R-Martin, told Bridge.

While she acknowledged that seeking out women isn’t a primary focus in state Republican candidate recruitment — “first and foremost, we want the most quality candidate that we can get” — Smit said she’s encouraged by the crop of conservative women running this fall and hopes Republicans can gain more “mama bear” women willing to fight for Michigan families.

Breaking down barriers

Regardless of party, advocates say there are benefits to making Congress and state Houses more representative of the population, arguing that more women and diverse candidates bring new perspectives and push for different types of legislation than their male colleagues.

In Nevada, lawmakers and observers told The 19th News that a majority-women Legislature has changed the political agenda, with lawmakers taking up policies to implement paid sick leave, expand abortion access and protections for pregnant workers, assist domestic violence and sexual assault victims and approve the Equal Rights Amendment.

Though more women are running for office in Michigan than ever before, barriers remain thanks to increasingly competitive political districts, term limits and other factors like lack of childcare access or familial support that can discourage women from running in the first place.

Maul, the Michigan director of Vote Run Lead Action, said they are encouraged by Michigan women with reputations as powerhouse fundraisers, citing U.S. Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin, who has banked millions in her fight to win the open seat being vacated by retiring Democrat Debbie Stabenow.

Vote Run Lead Action’s goal is to figure out the “secret sauce” for that kind of success and replicate it for women candidates down the ballot, especially for women of color who are underrepresented in state and local offices, Maul said.

Last year, Vote Run Lead Action hosted 150 women in Detroit for a three-day training program in what it takes to run a political campaign, including campaign speeches, strategy, maintaining personal information, work-life balance, fundraising and more.

Moving forward, Maul said the group’s main goals are to maximize opportunities for women candidates when state legislative seats come open, create sustainable pipelines of future women candidates and prioritize getting women elected in politically “safe” legislative districts so they’re less vulnerable to competitive challenges.

Other organizations have similarly invested resources in getting more Michigan women elected.

Ascend Fund, a collaborative fund with the goal of achieving gender parity in U.S. politics by 2050, in 2021 began investing in several Michigan-based organizations, including a candidate training program for Black women hosted by Mothering Justice and programming aimed at removing barriers for Asian American, LGBTQ+ and right-leaning women to run for office.

Other more overtly political organizations of both parties have also dedicated resources to women candidates in Michigan, including Emily’s List, a national group focused on electing Democratic women who support abortion rights, and the Michigan Excellence in Public Service Series and Republican Women’s Federation of Michigan.

Walsh, of the Center for American Women in Politics, warned that progress for women cannot be assumed as inevitable: “We need sustained focus and intentional efforts to address the problem of women’s political underrepresentation.”

This article is being republished through a syndication agreement with Bridge Michigan. Bridge Michigan is Michigan’s largest nonprofit news service and one of the nation’s leading and largest nonprofit civic news providers. Their coverage is nonpartisan, fact-based, and data-driven. Find them online at https://www.bridgemi.com/.