There will be a record number of women in US state legislatures in 2025

For the first time, women will make up the majority of state legislators in Colorado and New Mexico next year, but at least 13 states experienced losses in female representation after the November US elections, according to a tally released Thursday by the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP).

Although women will hold a record number of state legislative seats in 2025, the overall increase will be slight, at just over a third of seats. Races in some states are still being decided.

“We would certainly like to see a faster rate of change and more significant increases each election cycle to get to a point where parity in state legislatures is less novel and more normal,” said Kelly Dittmar, research director at the CAWP. which is a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

As of Wednesday, at least 2,451 women will serve in state legislatures, representing 33.2% of seats nationwide. The previous record was set in 2024 with 2,431 women, according to the CAWP.

The number of Republican women, at least 852, will break the previous record of 815 state legislators set in 2024.

“But still, Republican women are much less represented compared to Democratic women,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the CAWP.

States that won women in legislatures

At the most recent count, 19 states will increase the number of women in their state legislatures, according to the CAWP. The most notable increases were in New Mexico and Colorado, where women will make up the majority of legislators for the first time.

In New Mexico, voters appointed 11 more women to the chambers. Colorado reached gender parity in 2023 and is set to tip toward a slight female majority in the coming year.

These states follow Nevada, which was the first in the country to see a female majority in the legislature after the 2018 elections. Next year, women will make up nearly 62% of state legislators in Nevada, far surpassing the parity.

Women in the California Senate will make up the chamber’s majority for the first time in 2025 as well. Female lawmakers also made notable gains in South Dakota, increasing their total number by at least nine.

States that lost women in legislatures

At least 13 states ended up with fewer female legislators after the elections, with the most significant loss being in South Carolina.

Earlier this year, the only three Republicans in the South Carolina Senate lost their primaries after they prevented passage of a complete abortion ban. Next year, only two women, who are Democrats, will be in the 46-member Senate.

No other state in the country will have fewer women in its upper house, according to the CAWP.

Women make up 55% of the state’s registered voters.

Half of the members in the GOP-dominated state were elected in 2012 or earlier, so it will likely be at least until 2040 before any Republican woman elected in the future can ascend to leadership or committee chair in the chamber, which hands out leadership positions based on seniority.

A net loss of five women in the legislature means they will make up only about 13% of South Carolina lawmakers, making the state second lowest in the country for female representation. Only West Virginia has a smaller proportion of women in the legislature.

West Virginia is about to lose one more woman from its legislative ranks, compounding its representation problem in the legislature where women will make up just 11% of lawmakers.

Why is it important?

Many women, lawmakers and experts say women’s voices are needed in policy discussions, especially at a time when the federal government is the most powerful in decades.

Walsh, the CAWP director, said the new changes expected from the Trump administration will delegate even more policies and regulations to the states. The experiences and perspectives that women offer will be increasingly needed, she said, especially on issues related to reproductive rights, health care, education and child care.

“States would have to take over where the federal government might be moving away,” Walsh said. “And because of that, who serves in those institutions is more important now than ever.”

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