'Mujeres y Movidas': Center for American Women & Politics funds new report on Latinas in office

A recent study conducted by a researcher from Santa Clara University and funded by the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) examined the increase of Latina candidates running for office over the past five years.

The research focused on comparing the experiences of Latina candidates in Texas and California and the underrepresentation of Latinas in elected positions.

Anna Sampaio, a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at Santa Clara University and author of the study, said she has had a long-standing relationship with CAWP and was a former assistant professor at Rutgers.

This relationship with the University led her to apply for the grant that funded her research, she said.

Sampaio said she conducted the research in order to analyze the historic growth of Latina candidates from 2018 to 2022.

"There have been 50 percent more Latinas running in 2018, 2020 and 2022," she said. "One of the things that's significant to note here is that we have seen, already, patterns of Latinas running for local office and even some statewide offices … But there was a real dearth in Latinas running for national office."

Sampaio said congressional rulings on issues such as immigration affect almost every Latino household, and seats for national offices are important.

Excluding Latinas from congressional positions of power excludes their voices from topics such as citizenship, work authorization and family reunification, which are relevant to the community, Sampaio said.

"In 2018 and 2020, we can see a real increase in the number of Latinas running for national office and then a doubling of Latinas elected to national office," she said. "Between 2017 and 2023, the number of Latinas in Congress doubled, so it (went) from 10 to 20."

Despite this growth, inadequate representation is still an issue as Latinas only represent 2.8 percent of the congressional body while being more than 18 percent of the women in the nation, Sampaio said.

The study data collected from interviewing candidates and staff members noted that there are financial, emotional and psychological costs to participating in elections, Sampaio said. Many of these costs are rooted in the fact that women of color are usually excluded from traditional forms of politics, she said.

"They don't have access to large-scale donors. They don't necessarily have access to … into state party structures. So they … are encountering these costs at a higher frequency than other candidates," Sampaio said.

There is a notable increase in Latinas running against each other, specifically in Texas, where a newly elected Democrat Latina will be challenged by an underfunded Republican candidate who is practically set up to fail, according to Sampaio.

"It suggests those Latinas are simply put up as, effectively, tokens to undermine the reelection possibility of these Latinas," she said. "If (all political parties are) really serious about putting up Latinas to run for office, then they need to resource them, not just encourage them to run and then leave them without any funding, support any training, any staff or any kind of connections."

Sampaio said when the candidates have proper resources provided by their party and are given support, they have a higher chance of winning.

She said during the study's interviews, candidates and staff repeatedly discussed a notable increase in violence against women in politics, including threats, harassment and even physical violence, which provides another barrier to running for office.

Data has supported the idea that the increase of violence against congressional members has notably increased since 2017, and Latina candidates face violence for the issues they are running for as well as their ethnicity and gender, Sampaio said.

The study noted that due to this type of backlash, lack of funds and party recognition, Latinas have created informal networks for information sharing and support, she said.

Sampaio also noted the importance of supporting candidates who are not from Texas and California. She said the voices of the diverse population of Latinas in New Jersey are necessary in the local and national political sphere.

"Part of the reason I'm interested in Latinas getting to higher office is because they're the ones more likely to advance gun control legislation, criminal justice reform, immigration reform," Sampaio said. "If we're interested in seeing those things pass at the national level, we need to get more women of color into those bodies because it's unlikely that kind of legislation is going to happen in the Congress that we currently have."