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Name: Sara Ponguillo

Date: 10.April.2018

It's Official: A Record Number Of Women Are Running For House Seats
By Hannah Smothers
Apr 6, 2018

A total of 309 women have filed candidacy papers to run for US House seats in the
2018 elections, breaking the previous record of 298 women who ran in
2012. Accordingto the Associated Press, most of the female candidates are Democrats
who are motivated by "angst" over Donald Trump's administration and his largely
Republican Congress.

The best part about this news is that it's unsurprising. Women have shown a record -
breaking interest in running for office ever since two days after Trump's
inauguration. In December 2017, the New York Times reported an unprecedented
number of women were showing interest in running for office at the local, state, and
national levels. Many of them said they were directly motivated by Trump's win over
Hillary Clinton.

"It was Donald Trump and the way that he sort of embraced masculinity, but even
more specifically, misogyny, in his rhetoric and behavior," Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at
the Center for American Women and Politics, told the New York Times . "To make a
statement against that and the policies he espoused sort of pushed them over the edge
to not just think about running, but to put their names out there."

The Associated Press reports that in a lot of places, women are running for
congressional seats that have only ever been filled by men. Though women make up
more than half of the US population, four out of every five members of the House are
men.

But that could change with the upcoming 2018 election this November. Turnover due
to the high number of recent retirements and resignations in the House (many of
them Republican), combined with the high number of women who've filed for
candidacy, could increase female representation in the House.

Kara Eastman of Nebraska, one of two Democrats trying to challenge a GOP incumbent
in a congressional district centered in Omaha, told the Associated Press her candidacy
was motivated by Republican attempts to cut health coverage. She's also thinking
about the impact this outpouring of women candidates will have on future
generations of female leaders, like her teenage daughter.

"It’s a great thing for me to show my 16-year-old daughter," Eastman said.

While most of the women running are Democrats, like Eastman, Republican women
have also filed for candidacy. Tiffany Shedd, one of four Republicans in a primary in a
rural Arizona district, told the Associated Press she looks forward to a time when this
many women running for office is no longer newsworthy.
"I hope that we eventually live in a world where there’s no articles written about that
because it’s no longer a thing," she said.

OUTPOURING
Meaning: something that flows out in large amounts or with strong force
Synonym: effusion, discharge
Antonym: introspective, blench
Sentence: she attacked him with an outpouring of words

NEWSWORTHY.
Meaning: Sufficiently interesting to be reported in a newspaper.
Synonym: relevant, serious, influential
Antonym: unremarkable, ordinary, uninteresting
Sentence: The participation of Andrea was newsworthy for the school.