2020 Election Wrap-Up
By: Susannah Delano
Tags: California, Politics, Women, Womens Rights, Gender Equality

NOT A MOMENT BUT A MOVEMENT

As the 2020 election results finalize in California, we are proud to see women carry forth the historic momentum from 2018 — with more women running, winning, leading, and mobilizing across the state.

HOLDING THE LINE

Close the Gap California approached the 2020 election cycle with both defensive and offensive strategies — aware that women’s representation often backslides following a dramatic uptick like we saw in 2018 (and even more so in presidential election years with less open seat opportunity), our top priority for the 2020 cycle was to ensure progressive women filled the two seats where women were terming out: SD 5 & SD 19.

Women held onto SD 5 and SD 19 when former Assemblymembers Susan Eggman and 2016 CTGCA Recruit Monique Limón earned decisive victories. Not only did we hold the line for women, but our Senate gains two Latinas for the 2020–2021 session, one of whom is LGBTQi, and both of whom are moms. Women of color are now the majority of female Senators in California!

But the news for progressive women on the offensive line is bleak. While all of the progressive women who flipped red districts blue in 2016 & 2018 and sought reelection in 2020 prevailed, not one woman challenger prevailed this cycle, including four of our valiant Recruits: Elizabeth Betancourt in AD 1, Dawn Addis in AD 35, Diedre Thu-Ha Nguyen in AD 72, and our 2016 Recruit Abigail Medina in SD 23.

In these and in Dem-on-Dem open seat races, Independent Expenditure spending in opposition to women candidates again reached astonishingly high levels in 2020. $2 Million spent by Big Oil against CTGCA Recruit Kathy Miller in AD 13 just in the final three weeks of the campaign appears to have contributed to the ultimate, outsized reversal of what started as a robust lead for Miller through the first week post-election.

We could not be more proud of our Recruits for putting it all on the line, or more heartbroken that 2020 was not the cycle for many of them to join the Legislature. We know California hasn’t seen the last of these epically talented women.

FLAGS FOR THE FUTURE

Independent spending, moderate Democrats and the tendency for women’s representation to flatline or backslide over time are all ever-present challenges in our work. But the 2020 cycle presented a novel challenge some might have thought extinct in the Golden State: Republican women.

Mirroring a national trend, Republican women ran and won in record-smashing numbers in 2020, even in bright blue California. In fact, 5 of the 6 women elected to the Legislature since November 2019 are Republicans. And in contrast to the national demographics, 3 of those 5 Republicans are women of color. Anyone searching for a possible picture of the GOP post-Trump should look to these California women, and to how effectively they are able to collaborate as part of the Legislature’s bipartisan Women’s Caucus.

Not that progressives need more than Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett as a reminder of just how important it is to advance not just any women, but women who reflect our values — reproductive justice, public school funding and combatting poverty — but now we’ve got extra motivation to double down in our own backyard. CTGCA is more committed than ever to expand our capacity to recruit progressive women to run in every single district they can win between now and 2028.

When all the gains and losses are tallied for the 2020 election cycle, California will begin the 2020–2021 legislative session with a net zero change in women’s representation over 2019: 32%, still an all-time high. Three cheers for holding the line, against some serious odds!

THE PERFECT STORM AHEAD

One challenge progressive women will not face in the decade immediately ahead is limited opportunity. 2020 was the last small election cycle with only 6 seats open due to term limits. Over the next four election cycles, more than 96 open seats — women’s best pathways to election — will be up for grabs. That’s over 80% of the seats that comprise the entire Legislature, a volume of opportunity unlike anything we’ve ever seen in such a compressed period of time in state history- that’s why we call it the Motherlode.

It’s a perfect storm of opportunity for progressive women. Beyond the unprecedented volume of open seats 2022–2028, here are factors that will combine to provide additional onramps to office for women and non-traditional candidates in California: new district lines, and domino effects triggered by our U.S. Senate appointment, retirements, Biden administration appointments, and pursuit of higher office by current legislators.

If you or someone you know would make a great candidate for California State Legislature, send us an email to alice@closethegapca.org!

A sea change is coming to leadership in California no matter what. It’s only a question of whether we can recruit enough outstanding progressive women to run and win in equal numbers over the election cycles just ahead. Our Recruiters are already working with prospective 2022 candidates in more than 20 districts statewide, and they will tell you: gender equality is within reach, if we can continue to expand our proven model.

What’s more, the underreported upside to the 2020 election cycle in California is the series of resounding victories at the local level for historically diverse, committed progressive women candidates in just about every corner of the state. Far more than a silver lining, this constellation of fast-rising, innovative women leaders are our collective future — and it assures us that the talent pool our Recruiters will be able to draw on for election cycles 2024–2028 holds truly transformative promise.

Thanks to all of you who ran, volunteered, mobilized, and donated. Together, all of our effort and commitment is what it takes to urge history along.

2020’s lows amount to one moment in a larger movement, just as 2018’s highs did. Equality is a doable thing. Our movement is bigger than any one election cycle, and the Motherlode of open seats beginning now is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for over generations. Let’s tackle it!

The rest of the nation looks to California to set the bar for groundbreaking female leadership and policy solutions — let’s give it to them!