The Year of the Woman Really, Finally Did Arrive in 2020 - Seib, WSJ
(Gerald Seib is the very non rabid political columnist of the WSJ)
Nearly lost in the controversy over President Trump’s refusal to concede defeat is something momentous that unfolded in the background of 2020: remarkable advances by women. As voters, as candidates and as campaign leaders, women were—and now are—in the driver’s seat as never before. People in politics have been talking for three decades about an elusive “year of the woman,” but we just saw something with consequences that will last far more than a single year.
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—Women voters were responsible for Mr. Biden’s victory. Women made up 53% of the electorate, according to the AP VoteCast survey of more than 110,000 voters, and they went for Mr. Biden by a substantial 55% to 44% margin. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, won among men, 52% to 46%. In sum, the entire Biden winning margin came from women.
—Sen. Kamala Harris will become the first woman to serve as vice president. Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee in 2016, of course, and twice before—with Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008—women held the running-mate spot. The third time was the charm.
—A record-shattering number of Republican women were elected to the House. At least 17 new Republican House members are women, with two races involving GOP women still undecided. That means Republicans nearly doubled their previous record of nine new Republican women elected in 2010; as a result, the number of GOP women in the House also will more than double.
—For the second straight election, a woman was the manager of the winning presidential campaign. In 2016, it was Kellyanne Conway for President Trump. This year it was Jen O’Malley Dillon for Mr. Biden. In addition, women held many of the other top posts in the Biden campaign, including Ms. Dunn, Kate Bedingfield as the communications director and Symone Sanders as a top strategist. “You had, without a doubt, the next generation of women political operatives,” Ms. Dunn says.
—Women provided essential firepower for Mr. Biden in swing states. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was a critical ally. Cindy McCain, wife of the late Republican Sen. John McCain, offered a key endorsement in her home state of Arizona, which went Democratic for the first time since 1996. The voter-turnout operation of former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was essential to the Biden team in Georgia.
Moreover, the parade of women moving into positions of prominence is certain to continue as Mr. Biden assembles his administration. Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard is a possible Treasury secretary, former national security adviser Susan Rice a potential secretary of state, and former Pentagon official Michele Flournoy a top candidate for defense secretary. It’s likely Mr. Biden will want to pick a Republican or two for his cabinet, to show he’s serious about his promises to work across the aisle. If so, Meg Whitman, former chief executive of Hewlett Packard and Quibi and a onetime Republican gubernatorial candidate in California, is on the shortlist.
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Yet, perhaps that complex reality is the most important revelation of all, and the surest sign the country’s political-power structure has just moved beyond stereotypes and tokenism. Much rhetoric is devoted to a political system that reflects the face of America. The women of 2020 may actually be turning that thought into a reality.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-year-of-the-woman-really-finally-did-arrive-in-2020-11605539331 (subscription)