Gerrymandering or “Gloria”-mandering? An examination of redistricting effects on women candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives

Abstract

In 2022, for the first time since the 2018 midterm elections, the U.S. House of Representatives did not see a significant increase in the number of women elected, despite past literature indicating that redistricting is often helpful for women candidates by decreasing the incumbency effect. At the same time, significant research media attention has been dedicated to researching the effects of the 2020 redistricting cycle on partisanship and voting behavior. I connect these two issues by using machine learning models to examine the effects of the 2020 redistricting cycle on the likelihood of women running for Congress. These models revealed that redistricting has positive effects on women-candidacy in the years immediately following the redistricting cycle by increasing the number of open seats, however the process of map drawing overall skews towards a bias against women by way of partisan gerrymandering.