The GOP just hired its first female representative to recruit more women to run for office

Elise Stefanik.
(Image credit: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Fortune/Time Inc)

The youngest woman ever elected to Congress is now the first woman to take charge of the Republican Party's House candidate recruitment efforts. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), just 32, has taken the role of head of candidate recruitment at the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), and she is strategizing to end the GOP's woman deficit.

Her own role is part of the project. "I think the more women we have in leadership positions, the more women will see examples, [the more women] can see themselves in those roles," Stefanik said to The Hill. "So I think being in the leadership role of chairing recruitment is a step in the right direction." At present, women make up less than 10 percent of House Republicans, while House Democrats are nearly a third female.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.