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The increase in women candidates representing the Republican Party (GOP) is a monumental step in increasing representation through all sectors of the political field. The 2018 midterm elections are an example of this increased representation. There are record-breaking numbers of women holding seats in Congress. How are these women running, what is their tactic, and how do they stand against their male counterparts in elections? Republican women have, in large numbers, used tactics that portray traditional masculine characters while also emphasizing being a woman who has it all.

Women running for the Republican Party are making a noteworthy step in achieving equal representation in Congress and beyond, but because of gendered stereotypes enforced by groups of Republican voters they have faced significant obstacles. Their ability to balance family life and leadership is consistently doubted and questioned. The historic lack of womens participation in politics is vital in conceptualizing the tactics modern Republican women candidates have used in order to stand a chance against their incumbents and prove to their voters they can have it all.

The elections of 2020 exemplify the scope of womens representation in the GOP party and what that may mean for the future. More than 200 Republican women candidates filed, 48 of whom were nominees for the U.S. House. However, this story shouldnt be thought of as if they ran and won, but rather, how they ran and won. Women running for the Democratic Partys platform have taken similar approaches, so what is it that differentiates Republican womens campaigning tactics?

Meeting masculine expectations has been an obstacle all Republican and Democratic women candidates have had to face. Senator Victoria Spartz, a Republican nominee in Indianas 5th Congressional District, launched a campaign with an ad that was titled Fighter. She is described as being tough, driven and relentless while running on a treadmill, doing strength workouts, and putting on boxing gloves.

Conservative candidates have used their strong commitment to the Second Amendment as a guiding method of portraying toughness. This has been done primarily through gun imagery in campaign advertisements. Majorie Greene, of Georgias 14th Congressional District, was filmed shooting a high-powered gun at targets that symbolized gun control, the Green New Deal, and socialism. The symbolism of guns is both ideological and gendered, often used to convey conservative bona fides as well as toughness via a tool of brute force, explains Professor Kelly Dittmar.

Another method seen through these campaign tactics was noticeably highlighting their distinct gendered experience. In an ad titled Texas Woman, Genevieve Collins explains that being a Texas woman means you can shoot a gun, clean the house, cook your kill and then be in a board meeting right after.

These few examples epitomize the methods many Republican women have taken during their campaigning trail. They are using masculine-seeming approaches and, for example, emphasizing how the Texas women does it all. Although how has this been perceived among Republican voters?

Stay-at-home mothers are one of the leading voting groups for the Republican Party who are most skeptical of womens ability to balance office-holding positions with their family responsibilities. This has been a historic barrier for women running for the Republican Party, a barrier that is hard to break because of ingrained beliefs of gender roles within society. Moreover, this demographic of voters is thought to be the most reliable Republican voting group, so to have what could be your leading group of supporters questioning your ability as a woman to balance having a family and being a leader is quite demoralizing.

There are more Republican women than ever running for officewhich must be recognized as a step in a direction all parties want to achieve: equal representation in politics for all genders. Republican women have portrayed themselves as traditional masculine characters while also emphasizing a woman who has it all. This has given them some popularity, although has also confronted them with skeptical Republican voters questioning if they really can do it all, or if they should stay home and continue with their traditional duties as a woman. Throughout history, women have been told they must stay home, and that their duty as a woman is to take care of the children and the home. These confined norms have been broken, though large numbers of women, many of which tend to vote conservatively, still believe these gendered roles should be followed, causing them to doubt women who campaign and advertise themselves as being able to be a good mother and a strong leader. What will this mean for the future of women leaders in the Republican Party? How much does a woman have to do to prove to her own party that shes just as well suited to hold a position in Congress as a man?

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More women than ever running for the Republican Party, but what does this mean for women in politics? DU Clarion - DU Clarion

The vast collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington contain two brown wooden chairs. Their backs have labels explaining that they were used by John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in the first face-to-face discussion between presidential candidates at the CBS television studio in Chicago in 1960.

In short, the first televised presidential debate. And where America led, the rest of the world followed, copying the model of gladiatorial political combat as the ultimate format to help voters make up their minds.

But heading into the US midterm elections, the debate appears to be in decline, a casualty of fragmented digital media, a deeply polarised political culture and a democracy losing its sense of cohesion.

For many Republicans, ducking debates is a way to express disdain for a national media that former president Donald Trump has derided as fake news and the enemy of the people. Some Democrats have a different motive, refusing to share a platform with Republican election deniers peddling baseless conspiracy theories.

In Arizona, for example, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Katie Hobbs has declined a debate with Republican Kari Lake, a telegenic Trump supporter who has pushed his big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

But Republicans are the main objectors. In Nebraska, gubernatorial candidate Jim Pillen has refused to debate Democrat Carol Blood. Pillens campaign manager, Kenny Zoeller, told the Nebraska Examiner that he doesnt do political theater.

In the Pennsylvanias governors race, Republican extremist Doug Mastriano has rejected a televised debate with an independent moderator. Instead he has reserved a hotel ballroom on 22 October and selected a partisan to referee: Mercedes Schlapp, who was strategic communications director in the Trump White House. Democratic rival Josh Shapiro has little incentive to accept.

In North Carolina, Ted Budd, who sat out four Republican primary debates in his Senate race, has said he will not accept an invitation from the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters to debate Democrat Cheri Beasley. Budd said he had accepted a cable debate invitation, but there is no agreement with Beasley about that appearance.

It is a sorry state of affairs for a time-honored tradition that America exported around the world. Even Britain, after decades of resistance, followed suit in 2010 with three leaders debates between prime minister Gordon Brown, Conservative David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg.

Believe it or not, I watched all four of the Kennedy-Nixon debates and you could hear a pin drop anywhere you went, said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. Everybody was watching. In fact, over 70m watched and the number of votes that year? 70m.

But in the era of 400 channels, when polarization is so intense that the vast majority of voters already know for whom theyre voting, it doesnt matter what happens in a debate or if there is a debate. The costs of not debating are very small.

The format is not quite dead yet.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman has agreed to one contest with Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, while in Georgia, Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker (who dodged primary debates) appear to be inching closer to a deal.

In Michigan, after prolonged wrangling, Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer and Republican nominee Tudor Dixon finally agreed to a single debate next month.

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is set to debate Democratic challenger Charlie Crist but only once and only on a West Palm Beach TV station. In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott has granted a single debate to Democratic challenger Beto ORourke but it will be on a Friday night and competing for eyeballs with the high school American football season.

In each case, the enthusiasm to debate is underwhelming: candidates appear to be looking for an excuse not to do it in a divided America where the sliver of undecided voters offers diminishing returns.

They turn instead towards partisan echo chambers aimed at motivating turnout from their own bases. Republicans, in the particular, have been snubbing the mainstream media in favour of fringe rightwing outlets during the campaign so far. It is one more blow to the idea of communal experience, shared reality and the glue that holds democracy together.

Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said: Its dangerous because these televised debates at all levels have been one of the few good things about democracy in the modern era. People had to stand up there and defend themselves and say what they believed and let the voters take a good look at them.

But Kamarck, who worked in the Clinton White House, remains optimistic that the shift is not permanent. It is driven by a group of Republican candidates who are very inexperienced and ideological and know that they cant do well in a debate because theres so many things that they are for that are either unpopular or indefensible in terms of policy.

What you see here is a Republican party thats gone off the rails led by Donald Trump. It is this years crop of candidates who are not very serious people and cant debate but I do think debates will return when the Republican party starts nominating normally qualified people to run.

The acid test will come in 2024. From Ronald Reagans There you go again tease of Jimmy Carter, to George H W Bushs ill-judged glance at his watch, to Trumps apparent threat to jail Hillary Clinton, presidential debates have provided marquee moments even though, in truth, they may not have changed many minds.

There was an ominous sign earlier this year when the Republican National Committee, which has proved a cheerleader for Trump, voted unanimously to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, which was founded in 1987 to codify debates as a permanent part of presidential elections.

Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan, who attended presidential debates over the past two cycles, said: One of the great things about a debate is seeing a candidate have to deal with a question maybe that they didnt think of or they didnt plan for and, under pressure, how they address that.

When were looking for candidates for these really important positions we want to see how they answer the 3am phone call or deal with something unexpected. Its pretty good on the job training and rehearsal for the actual job over an hour and a half. We have all these different ways in which to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of candidates and its just another one that is going by the wayside.

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The end of the debate? Republicans draw the curtain on political theater - The Guardian US

The chair of the Libertarian Party of Texas claims Republicans started targeting them once their brand started growing and more voters began recognizing the party.

DALLAS After several Republicans tried to kick several Libertarians off the November ballot, there is no hiding the bad blood between the two parties.

The chair of the Libertarian Party of Texas claims Republicans started targeting them once their brand started growing and more voters began recognizing the party.

So, once that happened, the Republicans specifically started trying to figure out how to eliminate us in whatever way they can, Whitney Bilyeu said on Yall-itics.

Back in August, Republican officials and even some elected candidates, including Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and eight members of Congress, asked the Texas Supreme Court to remove nearly two dozen Libertarian candidates from the ballot.

The Republicans argued that the Libertarians didnt meet eligibility requirements, specifically failing to pay filing fees.

The chair of the Libertarian Party of Texas, however, says Republicans are just scared.

This time they went after 23 candidates. Looking at the list right now, the vast majority, if not all of them, are in two way races, which means if we were to be kicked off in that particular race, the Republican would be running against no-one, which has happened for far too long in far too many races in Texas, Bilyeu told us.

Listen to the full episode of this week's Y'all-itics here:

The Texas Supreme Court refused to remove the Libertarian candidates, ruling that the Republicans waited too long to challenge in the first place.

This isnt the first time the Texas GOP tried to remove Libertarians from the ballot. They did the same, and lost, in 2020, when the Texas Supreme Court ruled they waited until after the deadline to challenge a candidates eligibility. The thinking is that Libertarians steal votes from Republicans. Democrats feel the same way about Green Party candidates.

As for those filing fees, the Libertarian Party is challenging them in federal court. The party argues the fees are a deliberate GOP roadblock for third-party candidates. State law requires the fees and the amount depends on the office.

Libertarian candidate Kevin Hale, whos running for the 5th Congressional District in Texas, says he paid the fee, but with a catch.

I wanted to make sure that I was a thorn in the side of my incumbent, so I paid the filing fee, but I paid it in one dollar bills, Hale told us. I delivered $3,125 in one-dollar bills to the Secretary of State.

Hale says it took them an hour and 10 minutes to count the bills.

To hear our entire conversation with Hale and Bilyeu, including why these Libertarians are happy to accept protest votes and why theyd be happy if their presence helps a Democrat win, listen to our latest episode of Yall-itics.

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How the Texas GOP tried to get Libertarian candidates removed from your November ballot - WFAA.com

Days before the 2016 election, candidate Donald Trump stood before a throng of ecstatic followers and said, "I would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the United States that I will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if I win." Indeed he did pull out a narrow electoral victory, even though Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. There was plenty of carping. There were street protests. But nobody stormed the U.S. Capitol or enlisted Democratic officials in various states to sign fraudulent elector statements in the hopes of getting Congress to overturn the result in defiance of the Constitution. Clinton conceded the next day, although no one's pretending she was happy about it. Democrats grumbled about the antiquated system that elected the last two Republican presidents with a minority of the popular vote, but everyone moved on.

There's no need to recapitulate what happened in 2020. We are all too aware of it, mostly because Trump and his allies won't let anyone forget it. He made it clear from the beginning that it was simply not possible for him to lose and now we can see that he's convinced a large number of candidates for office, as well as their voters, that it holds true for them too. The Big Lie is alive and well.

According to FiveThirtyEight, 60% of American voters have an election denier on the ballot where they live. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported over the weekend about election deniers running for office around the country who have refused to say whether they will accept the results oftheirown upcoming elections. The Post surveyed 19 important statewide races, and only seven Republican candidates said they would accept the results while 18 of the 19 Democrats said they would. (The other Democrat didn't respond.) The Times noted that a few of those GOP candidates seem to be posturing in order to appeal to Trump voters who've bought into the big lie, quoting an aide who said on background that their candidate would certainly accept the results but just couldn't say so in public. That's what passes for integrity in Republican politics these days.

Amusingly, a number of defeated Republicans in this year'sprimary electionshave claimed that the votes were rigged, proving just how deep this conspiracy goes.Axios reportsthat losing GOP candidates in Michigan, Colorado, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada and Florida have all claimed their elections were tainted. Even some winners complained. Arizona's GOP nominee for secretary of state, state Rep. Mark Finchem, a hardcore 2020 election denier, claimed that "people all over the state [are] saying, 'I've gotten ballots that I didn't ask for.'" Presumably he doesn't believe his own primary win was dubious, but these people are so far down the rabbit hole that you never know.

Political number-crunchers keep warning that Democratic momentum could be a mirage. Are there still "shy" GOP voters out there who don't have MAGA flags on their pickup but feel deeply wounded by Joe Biden?

There has also been a recent spate of articles from various political number-crunchers warning that Democrats should be wary of getting it into their heads that they can win this midterm election. The momentum certainly seems to be moving their way, but these observers suggest that's a mirage: Polling in both 2016 and 2020 failed to capture Republican voters, who showed up in greater numbers than expected. (In the 2018 midterms the polls were pretty accurate. But because historically the party in power loses seats in midterm elections, somehow that doesn't count.)

Data analysts don't know what's going on with these invisible or "shy" Republican voters, but at least one pollster who is generally considered right-leaning says it's because GOP voters are sensitive to what strangers who call them on the phone might think of them:

He claims that Joe Biden's comments have created an "army" of these hidden voters who are impossible to poll, "even for us." These shy voters aren't like the MAGA fans who put Trump flags on their pickup trucks, but according to this theory they are so traumatized on behalf of the good folks who wear "Fuck your feelings" T-shirts in public and worship a man who calls Democrats, "disgusting," "depraved," "treasonous" andevery other gross insult known to manthat they won't even admit to a pollster who they are going to vote for.

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This pollster's data may be valid, but his analysis is just an personal opinion. Inmyopinion, it's highly doubtful that GOP voters aren't responding to pollsters because their feelings got hurt. Trump voters don't strike me as shrinking violets. I would guess they don't respond because Trump has told them that you can't trust anyone but him and his designated associates. Since he says any poll that shows he isn't winning by a landslide is in the tank, and all polls, even the right-leaning ones, do show that from time to time, his followers are required to discount and distrust all polling. They have swallowed Trump's belief that the only way Democrats can win is by cheating and that any polls which show Republicans losing are by definition rigged. Why participate in a rigged game?

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight threw some cold water on this whole thing anyway, noting that none of this is quite as predictable as one might think:

People's concerns about the polls stem mostly from a sample of exactly two elections, 2020 and 2016. You can point out that polls also had a Democratic bias in 2014. But, of course, they had a Republican bias in 2012, were largely unbiased in 2018, and have either tended to be unbiased or had a Republican bias in recent special elections.

True, in 2020 and 2016, polls were off the mark in a large number of races and states. But the whole notion of a systematic polling error is that it's, well, systematic: It affects nearly all races, or at least the large majority of them. There just isn't a meaningful sample size to work with here, or anything close to it.

The consequences of this belief that the polls are definitely wrong, however, could be profound. It feeds into the idea that if Democrats do manage to hold onto one or both houses of Congress even Silver's site forecasts that it's fairly likely they will win the Senate it cannot be legitimate. It will give all those election deniers still more fodder for the belief that they're being cheated, and we'll see yet more lies by cynical GOP politicians who see an upside to losing: It's a chance to delegitimize a Democratic majority and nurse the grievance and delusions of their Trump-crazed base. OK, it's not quite as good as winning, but it pays the bills and our already fragile democracy frays just a little bit more.

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Toxic effects of the Big Lie: Will any Republican, anywhere, ever concede defeat? - Salon

In another political era, a Republican presence at a major gathering on world problems might be unremarkable. But it stands out in a time of deep political division, when addressing the climate crisis in the United States has been largely left to Democrats. Baker and the mayor of Oklahoma City were the only Republican politicians invited to speak. And Bakers attendance, along with liberal leaders like Governor Gavin Newsom of California, comes as moderate Republicans, now on the fringes of their party, are quietly being enlisted in or inserting themselves into the climate fight.

Bob Inglis, a former Republican US Representative from South Carolina who now tries to sell conservatives around the country on climate action, noted the rarity of this kind of creature the Republican who leads on climate change. Surely Governor Baker was one of the first to step out into the open field, he said.

Clinton, in his opening statement, noted the urgency of the moment, and the need to get past the political barriers slowing action on climate.

Ive always wanted to go beyond the harsh, polarizing name-calling that characterizes the political debate today, Clinton said. When all is said and done, if we cant answer the How question, the rest doesnt amount to much.

As Baker enters the final stretch of his final term in office, some say the list of his achievements on climate change rivals that of even states considered leaders, like New York and California. Hes signed major bills jump-starting the offshore wind industry, committing to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and, most recently, boosting the clean energy industry in the state while carrying out an ambitious program to help communities address their climate vulnerabilities.

His track-record is not without critics. Some say he delayed implementing programs to achieve the net-zero emissions mandate he signed in 2021 or that he only approved climate bills after watering them down. Critics have noted that the footprint of natural gas has only grown during his tenure, adding that Massachusetts progress happened despite Bakers leadership, not because of it.

On Monday, as he sat onstage beside fellow panelists, the achievements he touted and the case he made for addressing the climate crisis primarily, jobs and the economy spoke to traditional conservative values. It hearkened back to the Republican party that established the Environmental Protection Agency under President Nixon not the one that has more recently sought to limit the agencys reach.

Im really proud of the fact that we are, for all intents and purposes, the only state I know of that really went hard at the resiliency piece at the same time that we went hard at some of the issues around alternative energy solutions, Baker said.

During his time in office, Baker has transitioned from a candidate who, in 2010, questioned the science of climate change to a governor who, a year from now, may count his accomplishments on the issue as a cornerstone of his legacy.

Over the clatter of a plant-based lunch on Monday a small but simple action we can take to support sustainability, according to a sign Baker said that in Massachusetts, environmental issues arent partisan like they are in the rest of the country.

But, when it comes to political leadership nationally, thats not true. The federal Inflation Reduction Act, for instance the major federal climate bill that was signed earlier this year passed without a single Republican signature. Last month, 22 of the 30 Republican governors in the country panned it as a reckless tax and spending spree.

On his panel Monday, Baker called the bill an enormous incentive opportunity for all of us.

Even so, Baker and others see an opening to appeal to some ordinary conservatives, through the jobs and economic possibilities of the seismic energy transition that addressing the climate crisis will demand.

Several companies Unilever and General Motors among them spoke Monday about their sustainability commitments and the role of business and finance in helping facilitate the clean energy transition. Gary Gensler, chair of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, joined by video conference to discuss the pending rule that would require companies to disclose their climate risks.

Hundreds of companies are making disclosures on climate risks, some of it about strategy, some of it about greenhouse gas emissions, said Gensler. The rule the SEC is considering is to ensure that theyre truthful, what in the law is called Fair Dealing.

Baker said hes hopeful that step will start a landslide of climate action that starts with business and then goes beyond. I think that has huge implications for politics, and for the urgency with respect to climate issues and I do think that will bleed pretty heavily into the Republican party in a good way.

Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shankman.

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At Clinton Foundation summit, Governor Baker is a rare Republican voice on climate - The Boston Globe