Election 2020: New York Leads Potentially Record Setting Wave Of Republican Women Elected To Congress
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- New York is on the leading edge of a wave that is likely to sweep a record number of republican woman into Congress.
It's an effort dating back two years, after the opposite result in the 2018 midterms, CBS2's Tony Aiello reported Thursday.
Republican Nicole Malliotakis declared victory in a brutal congressional race on Staten Island and in South Brooklyn. Malliotakis will likely join what could be a record 33 republican woman in the next House of Representatives.
New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik helped convince Malliotakis to run.
"The story of the 2020 congressional elections is, this is the year of the republican women. We have had smashing success," Stefanik said.
Stefanik led the charge, creating the Elevate Political Action Committee to recruit and elect GOP woman to Congress after the 2018 midterms left just 13 of them in the House.
Their 2020 success, especially in swing districts, is undeniable. Central New York Republican Claudia Tenney lost two years ago, but appears to have won back her seat on Tuesday. A republican woman also defeated former Clinton cabinet secretary Donna Shalala in Florida.
Stefanik said doubling the number of women in the Republican caucus is important.
"Women are particularly effective communicators... We bring different perspectives as moms, as the people making the majority of their family's healthcare decisions," Stefanik said.
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Daniel McCarthy, a political scientist at Manhattanville College, said the GOP focus on electing women was the smart and obvious move.
"College educated women in suburbs were turning away from the republicans and becoming democrats... But, if given a choice of a woman running on the republican line, many of those women stayed with the party," said McCarthy.
Stefanik said this can't be "one and done," and the effort to diversify the GOP caucus will continue.
Even with the GOP's gains in 2020, there are likely to be more than 80 democratic women in the next Congress.
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