Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in elected office proved so persistent? Some experts suggest that women lack sufficient ambition to run for office relative to men, while others say that districts with majority white populations do not provide adequate resources or opportunities for minority candidates to succeed. These approaches tend to treat women and racial minorities as parallel social groups, and fail to account for the ways in which race and gender simultaneously shape candidacy.
In her book, "Nowhere to Run," Christian Dyogi Phillips introduces the intersectional model of electoral opportunity, which argues that descriptive representation in elections is shaped by intersecting processes related to race and gender. The book and this conversation shed new light on how multiple dimensions of identity simultaneously shape pathways to candidacy and representation for all groups seeking a seat at the table in American politics.
Phillips is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Southern California, and holds affiliations with the USC Institute for Intersectionality and Social Transformation and the USC Dornsife Equity Research Institute. Prior to becoming an academic, Phillips led organizing and political campaigns in the American labor movement.
Episode Transcript
Chris Beem
From the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm Candis Watts Smith.
Jenna Spinelle
I'm Jenna Spinelle and welcome to Democracy Works. This week, our guest is Christian Dyogi Phillips, who is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Southern California, and author of the book Nowhere to Run Race, Gender and Immigration in American Elections, which was published in 2021 and the winner of the Theodore Lowi First Book Award from the American Political Science Association. So even though this book has been out for a little while, I thought it was an interesting time to think about running for office and some of the decisions and the factors that go into that, because we're already starting to see some candidates make announcements for 2024. And I'm sure there are lots of others up and down the ballot who are thinking about it and going through some of the decision making processes and the weighing that Cristian talks about in her book. And, you know, she also focuses a lot on the idea of descriptive representation, which I know is covered a lot in in political science classes, but I thought maybe they would just be worth your talking about that a little bit here at the beginning to kind of set up you know what that is, and why it matters in the context of this conversation.
Candis Watts Smith
So descriptive representation is one of those concepts that puts words. So the thing that we see, and we have a feeling about, but maybe we don't have a word for, and in this case, descriptive representation, typically, or kind of on the most basic level is concerned with the extent to which a legislature or representative or, you know, some sort of body looks like the population its constituent. So we tend to think about kind of demographic mirroring, and that could be race or gender, but it can also be, you know, like occupation or geographic, you know, where you live, are you role are you urban, but I think, you know, all in our and everyone's got, we recognize the importance of descriptive representation, apart from substantive representation, which is the kind of reflection of interest so we have a gut feeling that if we saw a representative body that was completely homogenous in some shape, way or form, we would be really suspicious of that. And so, you know, in a democracy, we expect our representative bodies to not only represent the interest of the population, but also the its demographics.
Chris Beem
Yeah, I think that suspicious is a good word to account for this, right. I mean, there is a, you know, long standing tradition, in, in politics and in any organization that has any kind of leadership structure is there's this argument that no, we represent everybody. We don't just represent our group. And, and there was also an argument against women's suffrage that said, no, no, the husband is representing the woman's point of view. And so this is unnecessary. And there's a pretty strong case that in just about every instance, that's just not true, it just doesn't happen. Now, you can, you know, you can, how close do you want to cut that, right? But the idea that someone who not just looks like me, but someone who has had my experiences, who knows, what it's like to be me, is going to be better able to represent me in whatever body politic we're talking about. I mean, I don't think anybody is going to dispute just the kind of prima facia logic of that. And so her argument is that we're kind of leaving out one specific part of that, and namely, were the intersectionality between women and embrace. Women in ethnicity, cast, you want to give the 25 cent tour of intersectionality
Candis Watts Smith
I just want to take one step back about one important thing that Professor Dyogi Phillips is work does, which is to not only kind of discussed descriptive representation in terms of diversity and mirroring of demographics and experiences, but also to us what we can see in some ways, as a measure of legitimacy of institutions, if we see that a representative body does not look like its constituents, then there Must, there is likely to be some sort of set of structural barriers that prevent people who are not there from showing up. And, you know, this book does a great job of helping us to understand what some of those barriers are at various levels, you know, from the individual level decision from a group and community level and decision. And then also the kind of larger structural and political barriers like in like districting, for example,
Chris Beem
And you know, it's not going to turn on a dime, but it'll get better. And the big issue that she makes is that it's not getting better, right? It's not improving, you can argue that women is getting better, and African Americans is getting better. But for this, again, this issue of intersectionality, it's not. And so I do feel like that's, you know, a context concept that we need to talk about.
Candis Watts Smith
Yeah, that's a great point, right. So here, we see that, sure, there are more women and more people of color, but they're not necessarily women who were people of color. And so this is where this kind of paradigm of intersectionality helps us to kind of pinpoint this specific phenomenon. So intersectionality is the idea that identities are not mutually exclusive, that they are instead mutually constituted. And by that, I mean, it's really hard to disentangle you know, if you are a, let's say, black woman about what influences your life, because of your race, and what influences your life, because you're a woman, these go hand in hand in the way that your experiences are structured. And so any kind of analysis that tries to reduce groups or people into one of these identities is almost always going to be maybe not inaccurate, but it's going to lack the necessary nuance to understand, you know, why do we see that? Yeah, there are more women in politics, but they are white women, or there are more people of color and politics with they tend to be, say, black men, for example,
Jenna Spinelle
One of the things that I really appreciate about this book and Christians work is all the examples that she brings in from the interviews that she did as part of this project. So I think that both of you have done a good job here of talking about the stakes and kind of the table, broadly defined. And I think we'll hear in the interview some of the specific ways that that has played out for the candidates and the office holders that Christian talk with. So let's go now to the interview with Christian Dyogi Phillips
Jenna Spinelle
Christian Dyogi Phillips, welcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jenna Spinelle
So before we get into your work, and your book, nowhere to run, I understand that being an academic is a second career for you. I wonder if you could talk about what your first career was, and how that informs the work that you do?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Yeah, they're actually the they're both the answer to theirs all the same. My first career was actually in the labor movement in the United States. And, you know, I was working with women of color in California and Texas, trying to work with them to help them build a voice on the job and in their communities, and also become leaders in political life. And I really loved that work. And I love the challenge of it. And one of the things I noticed during my career in the labor movement was, you know, looking around, I was around these dynamic women of color, who wanted to lead had the capacity to lead. But when I was looking at election after election, you know, the playing field was not dominated by those women of color. It was largely dominated by men and and largely white men. And to me, that disconnect just really didn't make sense. You know, how could I be surrounded by these amazing women who wanted to lead with say, yes, when asked to lead, right when given resources to really be in the mix in terms of politics and community leadership. And yet, I wasn't seeing that translated on the ballot and who was actually in office. And so for me, the my work in the labor movement actually led directly to the questions that really drove this book, you know, how could there be this disconnect between amazing women in these communities? And what we're actually seeing in the halls of our legislatures and elected offices,
Jenna Spinelle
How did the women that you worked with, like, what how did they think about descriptive representation? I realize they probably didn't know or, like, think about that term, but how did they kind of understand the concept and how it play out played out or maybe didn't play out in their lives?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Oh, yeah. I mean, it was really clear, you know, so when I was a political director in Texas, for example, with a labor union, every meeting I went to with an elected official, worker leader. was from the city of Houston, that's who we were organizing with at that time would come with me. And so these are folks who hang off the back of a garbage truck and pick up your trash. They're the ones who work in all of the offices that make a big city administration run, and are the civilians who work in the police department, they have, you know, and they would come to these meetings, and they would walk away with the impression that either the person we had met with actually understood some of the challenges and day to day issues they were talking about, and that they wanted to see change on or that they were clueless, right. And a lot of times what they part of the way they would read that is by that person's background, right by where they understood that person to be coming from, in their life. And, you know, sometimes if they didn't think that they shared those some of those important parts of their background, you know, the leaders that I would bring to the meetings, they would explain it, and very well, sort of like, here's why these challenges matter. But there was that extra step of translation and trust building that they had to really undergo if the if they didn't feel like that person shared some parts of their life history. And I think that was really, that's a really important part of what descriptive representation helps to propel. In a democracy that's diverse, right, and has lots of rich and growing types of communities and types of people in it. If we want to have processes and policies where people trust those we elect, there needs to be some shared sense of understanding of this is what it means to come from a life like mine.
Jenna Spinelle
Right. And I was just blown away by the information in your book about the number of majority white districts in the country, and you I think, are specifically talking about state houses, right? So not Congress, or local government or anything else. But can you just break that down?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
I mean, it is really striking, even though in some ways, I think it's people, you know, especially if you pay attention to politics, I feel like, it's maybe not surprising, but it is striking when you actually look at the map of the United States in terms of the degree to which white majority districts still define the playing field for politics, in nearly every state. And when I say nearly every I mean, all but three, to go back a little bit. You know, when I first started this project, I really wanted to understand how underrepresented are people, you know, I was working in California and Texas, these are, you know, in big cities. So I was like, maybe this is not really a representative situation in terms of understanding, you know, the scope of what types of people are represented. So I collected all this data, over 20 years from state legislative elections. And, you know, what I found is when you look across this two decade period, from the mid 90s, to 2015, this is a period where the American population is changing rapidly, right, in terms of its racial composition, the roles of women outside of the home are changing and expanding. And yet, when you look at who is getting elected to represent that changing population, what you see over that two decade period is flatness is a lack of change, right? Year in and year out two thirds of elections. And we're talking 1000s and 1000s, of state legislative general elections across all the states are won by white men, two thirds, it's a flatline year in and year out about 20 21%, or one of elections are won by white women really doesn't change very much during the whole period. And then you drop down and you look at the, you know, the last like 10% of elections remaining. And those are the elections that really Asian American women and men, black men and women and Latinas and Latinos are actually contesting right and are actually winning. And it's such a small slice of a really vibrant and diverse democracy. That to me, is the first part that's striking. The second part is the part that you're talking about, which is how our districts actually look right. So I think that there's two really important pressures that are really squeezing potential candidates and producing that sort of unchanging persistence. And the first is that when you look across the country, the vast majority of districts in the majority of states are white are majority white. And, you know, the average district population, for all of the elections I looked at over this 20 year period was 83%. White, right? That's an overwhelmingly white district. And that matters, because, you know, technically, if you meet residency requirements, and all of that stuff, any type of person can run in any type of district. But if you pay even a little bit of attention to politics, you're going to see pretty quickly. There's some intuitive sense, right about what types of candidates do well, and what types of districts and you know, I did lots of interviews for the book with donors and activists and candidates who are successful and candidates who work and other folks like that in politics, and it was really clear that the racial makeup of the district, it sounds really important signals about what types of people can run and when they're not And when you have most districts in most states majority white, the signal it sends is that the opportunities for a person of color to run are pretty scarce, especially if that person of color, you know, is already successful in their lives and has other things going on, which is the kind of person who makes a great candidate. So the types of districts where they think they might be most successful, tend to number one or two, or a small handful in nearly every state.
Jenna Spinelle
Yeah. And I want to come back to that decision to run, which is something you talked about in the in the book as well. But the majority white districts is I mean, is this a gerrymandering thing? Or is it just like how we have traditionally sorted ourselves? Is it the legacy of redlining?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Yeah, and, you know, the background story on why districts look, the way they do is another whole set of books. Right. But I think some of the factors you were talking about are exactly part of the issue, I think one of the things that we can think about is that, you know, as partisans, right, as the Democratic and Republican Party leadership in every state has gotten better and better at drawing districts for Democratic or Republican wins. At the same time, voters have also tended to be sorting themselves racially right into the parties more and more clearly, right. And the tendency for a white majority district to be a more Republican leaning district has also increased over time, there are still some districts where there's a slightly just over a majority white population that might be Democratic leaning. But that's less and less the case when we're talking about the 7386 districts across the country. And so as parties have been increasing their ability to ensure a partisan win in a district, it also happens to be coinciding with drawing racially polarized districts as well. And, you know, those are things that people on the ground understand, right. And I think that some of those understandings over time in some states, you know, there might have been a little bit more nuance maybe two decades ago, in terms of well, you know, maybe like a 20% Latino district, with a large white population, maybe that would have been a more partisan mix. But now, you know, that is decreasingly the case over time. And we'll see, you know, as we get more elections, going rounds of elections after this latest series of redistricting, what happens, but in the past, it's generally been the case that when you're trying to draw districts for a party to win, you're also likely drawing a really specific racial configuration. And oftentimes, you know, there are Republican majorities in many, many more state legislatures in the country than there are democratic majorities. And so they've tended to draw districts that that serve that partisan outcome, and they tend to be majority white.
Jenna Spinelle
And this gets to a you spend blue, several chapters in the book talking about Latinos and Asian Americans as crossover candidates, I'm using air quotes around crossover.
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Yeah, please put air quotes around. You know, I have heard of this sort of wishful magical thinking, right, about, you know, people, people thinking, well, maybe, you know, women of color are just going to be more acceptable to white majority districts. And so if we just find those types of people, or, you know, I think racialized notions around like Asian Americans being really acceptable to white voters. So maybe those are like these magical crossover voters. And I think that all of that thinking, while it is true that there are some candidates and a very small percentage of races, who do, you know, who are people of color who run and win and majority white districts for Latinos, you know, that's less than 1% of all the 1000s of races I looked at in my data set, it's very, very rare. But I think that that sort of that grit, that sort of grain of hope, stems from the incredible scarcity of majority minority districts. And so the reason I come back to it over and over again, in the book is because on the one hand, I get really, I think part of why I wanted to write this book is I think that the our conversation about majority minority districts and sort of differences between women and men's representation and communities of color tends to tunnel into communities of color, and what we think, you know, frankly, pathologizing communities of color and their politics very, very quickly, without any frame of reference, that what we're talking about is such a tiny slice of the overall pie of electoral opportunities. And so I really wanted to reiterate over and over again, that this context that's dominated by white majority districts, and white male incumbents, frankly, is as much an important part of the puzzle for figuring out women's under representation, as is looking at the dynamics that are happening with majority minority districts.
Jenna Spinelle
And there are, as we started to say earlier, a lot of trade offs that individuals have to consider and have to weigh in deciding whether or not to run for office. I wonder if you could talk about some of the things that you heard from the people that you interviewed for the book and a There are things in particular among Latinos, Latinos and Asian Americans, you know, trade offs that those groups have that others might not. Yeah,
Christian Dyogi Phillips
I think one of the things I come back to a lot in the book is, you know, we have this larger context where people really feel like their choices of where to run are constrained and squeezed into this very small number of majority minority districts. And then within those districts, I really saw persistent and systemic challenges for women of color, the Asian Americans and Latinos I talked to, in this book, to be recognized as viable candidates in those districts, you know, so before we even get to the question of whether they want to run for a particular seat, a lot of times these women are actually invisible to a lot of the men of color who are really controlling a lot of the access to resources in these really important districts. And so when they're trying to decide to run, I think part of, there's this invisibility, that has to be overcome, right. And then there's also this really, I think, specific push and pull, that women of color from immigrant communities have experienced in this way that they described an interview. So one part of it is, I have worked very hard. Maybe I'm a person who in my community or in my family is seen as the person who made it out, right to achieve this level of professional success or community leadership such that, you know, I'm thinking about running for office, or other people might be thinking about me as a candidate for office. And so I have all of these folks who I know, you know, really look to me to come and speak for other Latinos or other Filipino American women, or what have you. And at the same time, I also recognize that these instant, you know, places like the state legislature, not really made for people like me, right, there will be significant challenges in trying to get what I want to get done for my community in this type of arena, you know, so the work I'm doing maybe as a nonprofit leader, right, or as an immigration attorney, might be the better path, right? So there's that push and pull of like, you know, the theists are telling me, you know, me how we want it to be you to speak for us. And then at the same time, I'm really getting pulled in another direction of thinking, Is this really the place to get it done for my community? I think a second tension that I haven't seen in other books on, specifically candidates, and some of the tensions they face is really around being connected to an immigrant community. And this idea that several, you know, several interview subjects, sorry, I'm getting a little choked up, because they talked about, you know, the lives that their families had led over multiple generations, in order to make it possible for them to go to a fancy undergrad, right? To get a very stable job. And, and this idea of multi generational effort to find stability in the United States in the economy, you know, that up against the notion of telling those very same people, I'm gonna go run for this job, that's basically full time work for part time pay, and I could get fired every two years, you know, giving up that type of success and how that success is defined in certain types of communities. For another thing, which seems incredibly unstable and precarious is really a tension that I think can really make some folks feel really ambivalent about something that in other communities might seem like an obvious choice, you know, you're a great leader, you have good ideas, you should run for office, the equation is just a lot more complicated.
Jenna Spinelle
Right? And is, is another tension here that, you know, you talking about the, you know, multi generational effort to get to an under graduate or this the kind of the American Dream trope, right? So it's like, I'm the one that did all these things. And now I'm gonna, you know, run for office. And that's the story about me that's going to be out there, and I'll be perpetuating. But yeah, there's that kind of masks all of the ways in which the system is not set up to help everybody else in that community. So is that a valid tension that these folks face as they're running or thinking about running?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Yeah, I think that folks come into and I'll say this, you know, I spoke to a number of candidates who were very clear with me that, you know, part of the reason they wanted to run is because they did feel that sense of, you know, America made something possible for my family, that would not have been possible in the country my parents were born in, or the country my grandparents were born in, right, and they want to be really, I think they were quite genuine and explicit about saying, I feel like this is part of what my family owes to America is me trying to do something better for my community in elected office. And I want to take that really seriously and at the same time, because they are people who are experienced in the community and have worked on a number of issues and They recognize that there are some real limits to what happens in legislatures in terms of advancing the needs of their communities, right, or in terms of being able to act for the specific parts of their communities that they see as most urgently needing attention and resources. And so I think they come in eyes wide open, you know, they know what their families, the work that their families have done, what some of the barriers to that have been, that are a product of the way our society is organized in the United States. And they still end up deciding and in some ways, to me, it's surprising that people decide to run for office sometimes, because I'm like, after all, that, they still decide, you know, what this is where my leadership is needed, right? This is where my community needs a voice and particularly amongst the Asian American women and Latinas I talked to that was a central an overriding concern. That's what finally tipped them over the edge to say, You know what, I am going to do this, because the aunties want me to speak for us? You know, that's what's most important here.
Jenna Spinelle
The other interview that really struck me from the book was Daniela Rojas and what she had to say about ambition and stereotypes about that and how that fits in here. So can you tell us who Daniella is? And? Yeah, how this idea of ambition for women further complicates this picture we've been painting?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Yes. So Daniela Rojas is a Latina elected official, who was really generous in sort of sharing how not only how her actual life fits in with her life as a political leader, but also in being really clear with me about how she, how she felt people were viewing and judging that life, right, and how she had arranged it. And, you know, she said this thing that I heard from a number of people, right, which was about being open about ambition, right? So I think one of the sort of ongoing drumbeats in political science about why women are underrepresented is, you know, this series of studies that argues that, well, there just aren't as ambitious as men. And in the book, I show that that's quite true when you're looking only at White men and white women. And part of that is driven by white men's incredibly Outsized Ambition, it's I don't, you know, I'm not sure how you want to characterize it. But the way I read it is that white men's ambition is just so much higher than every other groups. But you know, when you actually look at other groups, and the differences between women and men, it's not clear to me that there's some sort of gender difference in ambition. And so folks, you know, want to lead and they know, they would be good leaders. But part of how that ambition is viewed is a tricky thing to navigate. And I think that Daniela Rojas was really careful about how she talked about her ambition and who she talked to about it, at what stages, right, because it was the kind of thing where, you know, she felt if she told people she wanted something, an elected office, what would carry? What would follow her around for the rest of her political career was that, oh, she just wants it. You know, she just wants that office for, for her own personal, how am I? How does she talk about it in the book, it's something like she's just about that office, or she's just about having that title, right? And that people would immediately assigned to her this sort of superficial desire for attention. And so she really felt like she was stuck between like, how do I let people know I want to run for this office. And I want to be a candidate without being labeled, you know, oh, she just didn't for the title. Right, which is not something that and that came up in a number of ways across interviews that people read and interpreted ambition from the Latinos and Asian American women that we were talking about in such a different way. Right. In another interview, in the book, this really important, I would say, political organization leader, you know, describe this Latina and he said, Oh, you know, she's basically been wanting to run for office when she was a little girl. And you know, there aren't many like her. And the way he talked about her being open about running for office was almost like she was a cartoon. And that was, you know, and in the same conversation, he also said to me, you know, most of the women I talk to, they just don't have that thing, you know, that ambition where they really want it, like the men I talked to. And so, you know, you have this incredible disconnect, where on the one hand, you're telling me that women don't have this Express drive this real cutthroat desire to be in office. And yet at the same time, when you describe women who express that kind of ambition, we don't look at them the same way. Right. And they're judged as being about something other than representing their constituents and wanting to make change.
Jenna Spinelle
So as we start to wrap up here, you mentioned earlier that, you know, we can't separate our identities and think about, you know, only women or only people of color. And so as we started thinking about, like, how to move forward here or how to fix some of these things, or how to make things better, more equitable. are there groups that are trying to put those things together? You know, I was thinking about Emily's list or represent women, but I, I wonder to what extent their work is either explicitly or implicitly focused on white women or doesn't really apply that kind of intersectional framework that you outline.
Christian Dyogi Phillips
You know, I think there's different types of sort of organizations and their roles in this process to think about. So the ones that you're talking about these, you know, these groups that really sort of help women in particular, trying to overcome this idea that they have to know more and have more experience. They provide these candidate trainings. And I'll say that, from what I've seen, over the past few years, I have seen groups that are focused on women, for example, I think, take much more seriously the diversity of need and necessities for different types of women from different types of racialized communities. And so I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a promising sign at the same time. You know, I also have seen a few organizations that I think are focused on specific racialized communities take more seriously that, you know, we might want to think about how we recruit and encourage women from this community in distinct ways, or what are the particular challenges. But I think that there's also an organizational need, in terms of, you know, these the organizations that really tend to power the campaign's of women and people of color, you know, and I think that in those organizations, so for instance, if you think about sort of organizations that raise money for Latino and Asian American candidates, right, some of the conversations I was having with those organizations, when I was working on this book, maybe five or six years ago, you know, I would ask at the end about, you know, so what does it look like when you dropped a list of the five candidates you want to support? Where, you know, are there? Is there one woman on it? Are there four women on it? What does it look like? And is that something you guys are thinking about? And you know, there would be a lot of uncomfortable shuffling? And sort of you know, we are working on it? Totally. But I'm not sure that I've necessarily, you know, I'm not sure that we've had enough time to really see how much of how much truth there is there and how much growth there has been there. And I think that, you know, organization, the other thing to think about is how, you know, big organizations that drive these campaigns, think about, you know, what kinds of risk are we willing to take with candidates of color outside of really safe majority minority districts? Are we willing to invest more in developing candidates and leadership in 20% Latino districts and 30% Latino districts, right, or districts with 10%? Asian Americans? I think that that's an organizational conversation also, that needs to keep going. You know, I think that when you look at some of the states, for example, where folks are starting to win, clearly, there's there is some expansion, strategically of thinking about like, Where can we win? And, you know, I was thinking I was looking at some of the results from 2022. And you know, we've just had this round of redistricting. So it's kind of interesting to see what's going on. Because overall, after the 2020, round of redistricting, there's actually fewer majority minority districts than there were before 2020. And, you know, there's some key states that really have gone in opposite directions in terms of those right, so Texas lost five seats, California lost to see Florida lost six seats, Virginia added seven seats, right, Massachusetts added five seats, Michigan added four seats. So in some of those places where there's some growth, and in some places where there's loss, you know, our organization's thinking a little bit differently about, you know, where it's worth it to invest in candidates of color, and what those different types of investments need to look like to bring both women and men of color to the table.
Jenna Spinelle
You and I were chatting before we started recording that this is the time to kind of take stock at the end of one cycle and look forward to the next. So I wonder, you know what you're going to be keeping an eye on throughout 2023. And as we head into the next round of elections next year?
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Yes, one of the things I'm always paying attention to is, you know, what proportion of candidates of color are coming out of majority minority districts. And where are we seeing candidates of color emerge in districts that aren't majority minority? And how does that look different or the same amongst women and men? So that's something that I've been because I haven't seen a big shift yet in those terms. But it could happen, you know, and we still have data coming in from 2022. I think the other thing I'm really interested in is legislatures that are close to or have just passed having a majority women, right? So there are three legislatures that have 50% or more women in them California and Nevada and New Mexico. And California has recently had a big bump in the percentage of women. And I'm really interested to see you know, these incumbents in office play such an important role in shaping, you know, the dynamics and the processes that bring forth new candidates down the road, and I really want to see whether or not having such a larger number of women shape some of the political landscape in terms of some of these networks that I write about in the book that are pretty oriented around men. And I think that one of the things I'm particularly curious about is, you know, in the States, a lot of this growth has been amongst women of color. And I'd really like to see whether some of the dynamics that have shaped things in the years leading up to the period I cover in the book, whether there's a shift, you know, or whether there's, you know, a little bit of movement, but people are still kind of constrained by the institutional forces around them. I'm really curious to see how these new larger groups of women and legislatures, how they do things a little bit differently.
Jenna Spinelle
Well, maybe we can have you back on and in a year or so to talk about it and see where things are. But for now, we'll link to your book in the show notes and your website as well. So people can follow everything that you're up to Christian Dyogi Phillips, thanks so much for your time today.
Christian Dyogi Phillips
Thank you so much. It was a great pleasure.
Candis Watts Smith
I'm so glad that we brought on Christian and thank you for your interview. Jenna, one of the things that stands out to me about Christians work and the book is that it focuses on state politics and representation. And I just think that's so important, because this is where so much of the action is happening. Even when we talk about the nationalization of American politics, part of that happens, because it's so easy, it's much easier for interest groups to have an disproportionate say, and how things work at state levels, because people aren't paying attention. And so I'm really appreciative of the work that was done here. And then it's really difficult work, right, because there are over 7000, state level districts and Christian Stata is freaking amazing, covering almost 63,000 state level elections over a two decade period. But the thing that stands out, and Chris mentioned this earlier, is that the change and representation by race and gender really hasn't changed very much over that two decade period, traditionally, people have focused on, you know, majority minority districts as safe havens for candidates of color, or just hoping that the increasing diversity in the population will produce more diverse representative bodies, but that's not what we see. And so I really appreciate Christian, just pointing that out, and then helping us to think through one of the reasons or some of the reasons why that is,
Chris Beem
My question would be, why is this? Why is it that you don't see that change? You know, is it simply that the politicians are who are making these redistricting decisions are white males? And, you know, sexist and racist? Is it because they don't give a damn about intersexual and intersectionality, but just want to win? And they think they're not going to be able to do that with crossover candidates, you know, even though that may not be correct. They may that's what they think, is it because there are gatekeepers within these communities that are keeping women of color who are obviously have the skills of leadership, but they're discouraged from running for office. I just wonder, you know, what accounts for this? And I don't see a lot in the book that really kind of tries to answer that question.
Candis Watts Smith
So I disagree in that. One. I think you're right. I mean, we every political scientist who studies American politics will tell you that representatives are single minded seekers of reelection. And so they will do almost anything to ensure that they have a job come the next election. And what that means today, especially, is that representatives choose their voters instead of letting voters choose them. So we know that to be true, right. We know that, you know, over the past several years, more conservatives are controlling state legislatures. And so we go back to the previous point, we would expect to find districts that are made to crowd out, you know, non conservative leaning districts and we and we know that, that race and partisanship are increasingly you know, intertwined and correlated. So we have these kinds of ideas. And then you know, I think it's also pointing you know, people will always be like, but the LIBS the you know, I have read many a paper about the extent to which even liberal white Americans are they I'm going to use air quotes statistically discriminate against people of color because they believe that other are white liberals for them? Right. But we've also seen, you know, again and again, that when people of color run, and when women run, they tend to win. And so there's a lot of unpacking to do there, which I do think that Christian does over the project around each of the mechanisms and points of concern that you raise your right.
Chris Beem
You know, I think this question of, you know, why is that? Why is it that these, you know, these women, you know, despite the fact that it's so hard for them to get on a ballot, do, you know, just as well as in terms of as a quote, unquote, crossover candidate as a white person or a white woman would? And I just wonder if there isn't something to be said for the fact that, because it's so hard to get through all these, you know, jump over all these hoops, the women who actually end up doing that have already shown themselves to be really outstanding candidates. And so they do better? Is that Is that a fair question? A fair assumption?
Candis Watts Smith
Totally. I think my sense is that the research shows that. And the thing about politics is that I mean, there's special things about politics, but politics, also mimics other domains of our lives. So we tend to see that women will not try to get a promotion before they think that they are ready. And that means a you know, like, build up all of these resources and skills to get this, you know, next new big job, men don't. They don't do that. And we see that in politics as well, that it's once a woman decides that she's going to run, it's because she knows she's going to be an excellent candidate. And we've seen again and again, where there's a really highly qualified woman next to some dude. And then yeah, no question about, like, you know, is she prepared about how, who's going to take care of her children and the sound of her voice? All of these things? And so you know, who wants to get who wants to go through that? But, you know, we see that once, you know, folks who are who decide to do that tend to win, and they often can win in majority white districts.
Chris Beem
I think we, you know, we can just stipulate that all this data is pretty convincing, right, that these, that this issue is that there's a problem of representation, and it hasn't gotten better over time. So what do we do about this? Because I mean, you know, I mean, I suppose you can make the case to you, politicians gatekeeper political party gatekeepers, that look, you know, we can show you evidence that, that these, that these candidates are just as viable as any other candidates. But you know, they want to keep that seat, or they want to win that seat. And that is basically the extent to which they're, you know, they're concerned about this.
Candis Watts Smith
When you look at Congress while you have, or gubernatorial elections, you have 50 of those. That's not a lot of data points. If you look at the congressional level, you know, you have 435 plus the Senate, you know, that's more but still, if you look at the state level, which again, which we're saying is where a lot of things happen, we can leverage more data to see what are the circumstances under which we have so called crossover candidates, where they're elected. And I think by doing this really hard work at the state level, we get more information about the context that candidates of color and women of color, and you know, maybe even LGBT candidates just under historically underrepresented. Minorities can be elected through this kind of work. So I think that's the first step whether people take in the information. Well, that's a whole nother problem. And I don't I don't know if that's within our purview. But I think that this is a really important first step is to myth bust, and to provide information and nuance to people who are using their gut reactions around what kind of people are electable and viable and who is not.
Chris Beem
I think that's fair. And I take the point.
Candis Watts Smith
And so, you know, we need to kind of keep our finger on the pulse there that there are, you know, organizations that are focused on all sorts of people, but it would be ideal, if you know, organizations that have had success, are willing to borrow broaden their lens to incorporate and elevate a wider swath of people even within a particular group. So even within women, right,
Chris Beem
Right, right. And, you know, as you say, and as it's demonstrated, there's evidence that that works, right when people take that leap that it actually is successful. So well, you're I mean, I think your basic point that this is a, you know, a fairly new step and an important conversation is right, and it's really backed by just solid and really incontrovertible evidence. And so it's really helpful to have this book out there. So thanks to Christian for a really excellent book and a great interview and thanks to Jenna as always, I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts Smith
And I'm Candis Watts Smith. For Democracy Works, thanks for listening.