U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., (left) and Marsha Blackburn, D-Tenn., are among the record number of women running for governor this year. In this photo, they speak during a Senate subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill on September 30, 2021 in Washington. (Photo: Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — New data shows the number of women running for office in 2026 is up slightly compared to 2024, but experts say there is still work to be done when it comes to women’s overall representation in public office.
As of July 20, the number of women running for governor has reached an all-time high this election cycle, and the number of women running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives could also set a record. data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP).
The center, part of the Eagleton Policy Institute at Rutgers University, collects data on women’s representation in federal, state and local government.
The center also conducts research and educational programs on the role of women in politics. Its mission is to boost women’s involvement in public life.
Middle-aged women
There are 85 major-party candidates running for governor in 36 states this year, far exceeding the previous record of 69 set in 2022.
Fifty-one of those women are Democrats, another record, and 34 are Republicans.
At the congressional level, 580 women are currently major-party candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, just three shy of the record of 583 candidates set in 2018 and 2020.
According to CAWP, this record may be broken when the deadline for submitting candidates for the House of Representatives expires on August 7 in Louisiana.
The number of women in the Democratic House elections has already reached an all-time high of 387. The remaining 183 women running are Republicans.
There are 64 women from major parties running for seats in the Senate, exactly half of them Democrats and half Republicans. The record for the number of female candidates for the Senate was set in 2022 at 70.
She would need to become a Senate candidate in Maine and South Carolina to break the record of 70 for women, CAWP Data Director Chelsea Hill said Tuesday during a media briefing with other CAWP research experts.
The day before the briefing, Republican Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, who was sworn in On July 14, to replace her behind schedule brother, Lindsey Graham announced plans to run for a full six-year term at the urging of President Donald Trump.
While neither the U.S. House of Representatives nor the U.S. Senate have yet reached record numbers of female congressional candidates, the overall number of women running for Congress is up compared to the last election cycle.
The number of women running for Congress fell in 2024 after rising for three consecutive cycles, which CAWP later called “evidence of stalled progress toward gender parity,” Hill said.
Despite an boost in the number of women running for office over the years, women’s representation as a percentage of all candidates running for Congress and state governorships remains low.
According to another set CAWP data from July 20 shows that women make up 27% of all candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and 23.9% of all candidates for the Senate in 2026. About 25% of candidates for governor are women.
Milestones at your fingertips
At the same time, however, CAWP experts said at a news conference that women could achieve many milestones in the 2026 election cycle, including women in certain government positions for the first time and “women of specific racial and ethnic backgrounds and affiliations with any party.”
They pointed to incumbent Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, who are running to become the first women governors of their states.
And Deb Haaland, the former U.S. Secretary of the Interior currently serving in New Mexico, could become the first-ever Native American governor of any state if she wins in November.
At the congressional level, names like Milat Keros, Aisha Wahab, Denise Powell and others have the potential to break down barriers for women in public office.
Keros could become the first Black woman to represent Colorado, Wahab the first woman from the Middle East or North Africa to serve from California and Powell the first Democrat to represent Nebraska in Congress.
Near the end of the press conference, CAWP fellow and research director Kelly Dittmar said the center’s 2026 candidacy data could be used as a tool to explore and start a broader conversation about women’s political paths, nodding in particular to Blackburn and Klobuchar’s gubernatorial candidacies.
“When we think about women becoming chief executives of the state as a potential path to the presidency, (it is) also something we must always pay attention to,” she said.
CAWP data focuses on major party candidates and will continue to be updated regularly to reflect upcoming state filing deadlines and major congressional results.
