More women poised to win elections…

By Leigh Pomeroy
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 1:12 pm

But they still have a long way to go to be fully represented in Congress

Cross-posted at Vox Verax.

(NOTE: This article has been edited and corrected since first posted.)

On Sunday afternoon on Rochester, Rep. John Murtha, who was introduced by Minnesota State Senator Sheila Kiscaden, opened his remarks by saying that when he entered Congress there were only 15 women in the House. Now there are 67, or a little over 15% of the members. Also on the patio with him was Minnesota State Rep. Tina Liebling. Later in his remarks, the congressman acknowledged that when he was growing up “in the Murtha family the women ran the show.”

That led me to wonder what the new Congress might look like in terms of male and female faces. Looking at the Top 30 races listed by the National Journal, the following seats could see a gender change in the next Congress:

Rank as of 9/8	House seat	Current occupant	Possible opposite sex successor
2	Arizona 08	Jim Kolbe (R)	Gabrielle Giffords (D)
4	Pennsylvania 06	Jim Gerlach (R)	Lois Murphy (D)
5	Texas 22	Tom DeLay (R)	Shelley Sekula-Gibbs (R)
10	Connecticut 04	Chris Shays (R)	Diane Farrell (D)
17	Virginia 02	Thelma Drake (R)	Phillip Kellam (D)
20	Washington 08	Dave Reichert (R)	Darcy Burner (D)
22	Connecticut 05	Nancy Johnson (R)	Chris Murphy (D)
23	Illinois 06	Henry Hyde (R)	Tammy Duckworth (D)
27	Minnesota 06	Mark Kennedy (R)	Michele Bachmann (R) or Patty Wetterling (D)
29	Vermont AL	Bernie Sanders (I)	Martha Rainville (R)
30	Illinois 08	Melissa Bean (D)	David McSweeney (R)