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Welcome to The Lid from Meet the Press. I'm Carrie Dan, and I hope you had a great and safe Thanksgiving. So Margaret Thatcher famously said this about gender and politics. In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man, and if you want anything done, ask a woman.
It seems like folks on both sides of the aisle lately are taking that message to heart. Going back to 2018, perhaps the biggest storyline of those midterms two years ago was that voters sent a clear message about candidates for the US House and Senate. In the words of the great philosopher Beyonce, more girls, or women, should run the world. Two years ago, a record 102 female House candidates won their election bids, up from a previous record of 85 two years earlier.
But the story back then was specifically about democratic women. The number of democratic women in the House increased by 28, while the number of Republican women in the House fell by 10. Of 36 freshman women elected for the first time two years ago, just one was a Republican woman. But after the 2020 election, we're looking at a very different narrative.
Despite an election where Joe Biden won women overall by 15 percentage points, Republicans had a very good night down the ballot, including female Republican candidates. So far, at least 26 Republican women will be joining the House, with a handful more leading in uncalled races. And yes, there are still uncalled races. That means there will be a record number of women serving in the House, and some big barriers have been broken along the way.
We will have for the first time the first black congresswoman from Missouri, the first all women of color house delegation, that's in New Mexico, and the first Republican female Native American in Congress. Now, the momentum for down ballot female candidates may have been on the GOP side, but of course you can ignore there's been some really, really major progress for democratic women too, when it comes to the White House. Obviously, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will be the first woman to hold that job and the highest ranking black woman in American history. But Biden's cabinet picks so far also show a commitment to other firsts for women.
If confirmed, President-elect Biden has announced or at least telegraphing that he's considering folks, who would be the first female Treasury Secretary, the first female Director of National Intelligence, and possibly the first female Defense Secretary. And he's also announced that his entire communications team at the White House will be made up entirely of women. It all means that there will just be more women front and center when it comes to American policy and politics, which hopefully means more girls looking at their screens and saying, hey, I can do that. I'm not just saying it, but getting things done too.
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