Press Release

BREAKING UP THE BOYS' CLUB: Women are making enormous strides in politics. A record number of women are serving on Capitol Hill. Records are also being broken at the state level too. Kamala Harris is the first female vice president. And both parties have now had women lead their successful campaigns to retake the White House, with Kellyanne Conway in 2016 and Jennifer O'Malley Dillon in 2020.

But for all the records, the share of women in politics continues to be far less than women's share of the US population. Shattering more barriers will require not just more female candidates but more women throughout politics.

My colleagues took a look at some of the most notable names ahead of the 2022 midterms. Here's a peek:

·         Neisha Blandin, head of political strategy at Swing Left: A veteran of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run, Blandin is the youngest member of and the only person of color on the Democratic Data Exchange's board of directors. In 2020, she guided about 170 federal and state campaigns through a myriad of issues.

·         Sandra Mortham, founder and president of Maggie's List: Mortham said her experience serving as Florida's secretary of state in the mid- to late 1990s and earlier as a state lawmaker led her to create a political action committee focused on electing conservative women to Congress.

·         Abigail Sigler, vice president and director of communications and media at Baker Group Strategies: She has worked for several GOP politicians, but she's most proud of being a part of GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn's 2018 campaign as her communications director. Sigler is currently a senior advisor to Blackburn and GOP Sen. Bill Hagerty, both of Tennessee, along with numerous congressional members and their campaigns.

·         Johanna Silva Waki, vice president of training and community engagement at Emily's List: Waki said she'd been fighting for immigrants' rights for decades. In recent years, she's worked for candidates like Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat of Nevada, as well as helped usher in the country's first majority-female legislature in 2018.

Check out our full list of 20 notable female strategists here.

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Source: Brent D. Griffiths, Yahoo News