A New "Year of the Woman"? The Rise of Female Democrats and the Struggle for Female Republican Candidates in the Midterm Elections

Seminar paper from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, , language: English, abstract: This study is concerned with the question in how far the presidency of Donald Trump creates advantages or disadvantages for female candidates for the midterm elections. Firstly, there will be a chapter that deals with the initial situation which was created when Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. It will give some background information about the lewd history and indecent behavior of Trump towards women, which leaked to the media during his presidential campaign. Chapter three will provide an analysis of two female Democratic Party candidates and their advantages for the midterm elections in November 2018. The chapter will present Kyrsten Sinema who is running for the U.S. Senate to represent the State of Arizona and Chrissy Houlahan, who is running for the House seat of the 6th Congressional District of Pennsylvania.

Another chapter will focus on difficulties that Republican female candidates have to face and present Diane Harkey who is running for a House seat in Californiäs 49th Congressional District and Martha McSally, also running for the Senate seat to represent the state of Arizona. Within these subchapters, the strength and weaknesses of each candidate will be pointed out and how each of them make use of the presidency of Donald Trump. Finally, the last paragraph of this term paper will be a conclusion, which sums up the results achieved and gives an outlook for future research on women in Congress.