More women are running for U.S. House seats in Indiana than any previous election, and there's a record number of women running for House seats and governorships nationwide as well.
In Indiana, the general election ballot will include seven major-party women in congressional races.
That includes two districts with an incumbent woman: Jackie Walorski (R) in the 2nd District and Susan Brooks (R) in the 5th District. Walorski's district is the only one in Indiana with two women on the general election ballot.
The last record of five women running was set in 2016, according to Political Analyst Eric Ostermeier. He says there's been at least one female major party candidate in a U.S. House race in every race since 1988.
The deadline for independent and third party candidates to file is July 2.
As NPR reports, women made up 19.2 percent of House candidates on primary ballots in Indiana, Ohio, North Carolina, and West Virginia on Tuesday. And with the votes tallied, women will make up 33 percent of all general election House candidates in those states.
"The real problem in terms of women's representation has been at the stage of getting candidates for office," says University of Notre Dame assistant professor of political science Jeff Harden.
Harden's research shows that when a woman holds a prominent political office, it has a positive effect on the number of women running for lower offices in her state.
So the recent jump in the number of women running for office could be what he calls "a Hillary Clinton effect."
"We also did find that even women who are candidates for a prominent office, they still have a little bit weaker of an effect but still have a positive effect on down-ballot female candidates," he says.
Women make up about 23 percent of the U.S. Senate and about 19 percent of the U.S. House. And even with a record number of women running in 2018, it's not enough to significantly tip the scales.
"In terms of getting to equal representation of men and women in Congress, that would take a while," Harden says. "Even with kind of a big year like this, that still might take a while."
