New Data on Women’s State Legislative Representation Tells Multiple Stories
Originally published by Kelly Dittmar for Forbes
The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University has released its latest rankings for women in state legislatures, capturing the status of women in all 50 states at the start of 2025. This data tells multiple stories. First, while women’s state legislative representation increased nationally and multiple states achieved representational milestones, progress was not ubiquitous across states. Second, variance in both women’s partisanship and party control of legislatures exposes the limitations of equating women’s legislative representation with political power.
Finally, gains in women’s political representation and power—nationwide or within each state—are not inevitable. Influencing these numbers are real-world hurdles to women’s candidacy and success, as well as targeted efforts to recruit, train and support women running for state legislative office.
Gains And Losses By State
For the first time, women hold the majority of state legislative seats in three state legislatures in 2025. Women outnumber men in the Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico legislatures, as well as in seven individual state legislative chambers across the U.S. Twenty-three states—including those where women are a majority—saw net gains in women’s state legislative representation from Election Day 2024 to January 2025, but a majority of states (27) saw either no change or a net loss in women’s representation as the new year begins. In fact, the percentage change in women state legislators ranges from a 22.2% drop in Nebraska—where the 49-seat, unicameral legislature saw a net loss of four women—to a 34.5% increase in South Dakota, where the 105-member legislature saw a net gain of 10 women.