Donald Trump backlash inspires record number of women to run for Congress

The backlash against Donald Trump’s presidency has prompted a record number of women to run for office this year.

More than double the number of women who ran for Congress in 2016 have put their names forward ahead of November's mid-term elections, in which Democrats hope to wrest control of Congress from Trump's Republican party.

“I definitely think Donald Trump in that election was an awakening for us,” said Katie Hill, who is running as a Democrat in a seat held by a Republican for the last 25 years. “I think it made us realise our status in society is more delicate than a lot of us realised.

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“Now we’ve got this trigger of ‘we can do this’ and ‘we have an obligation to do this’ there’s more of an unwillingness to sit by when we're represented by less than 20% of the people in Congress being women,” she said.

Sky News says the shift “was evident on the day after Mr Trump's inauguration, when the women's march on Washington drew the largest single-day protest crowd in US history”.

The president’s past comments and actions towards women, including multiple allegations of sexual misconduct prompted by the Access Hollywood tape, which surfaced weeks before the 2016 election, have mobilised a campaign that has since been buoyed by the #MeToo movement.

Now it could deliver more women to Congress in a year in which Democrats are hoping to gain a majority in the House of Representatives.