In-Person DC Roundtable: Advancing Women’s Political Representation and Democracy

Progress for women’s political leadership is stagnating around the world, alongside global democracy decline. In 2024, in the year of elections, only five women out of thirty-one presidential elections won their campaigns. In addition, U.S. voters elected fewer women to the House of Representatives than at any time in the last two decades. The nonpartisan organization RepresentWomen works in the United States and globally to expand women’s political participation and strengthen representative democracy. Linda Robinson, senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Cynthia Richie Terrell, executive director of RepresentWomen and co-founder of FairVote, discuss ongoing research on recent elections and how electoral rules and systems impact women’s political representation around the world.