Source: Politics
When Annie Andrews announced her longshot campaign for U.S. Senate last May, the Democrat from South Carolina pitched herself as a “busy mom.”
“Lindsey [Graham] is going to tell you I am radical, that I am crazy,” Andrews said in her launch video. “But here’s the thing: I am literally a busy mom and a pediatrician who plays peek-a-boo with my patients, watches Bluey with my kids … and spends most of my free time shuttling them to dance, Tae Kwon Do and football.”
Now, she is one of a record number of women who will serve in the next Congress. And as a 46-year-old mother of three school-aged children, she’s among several Democratic women who flipped seats and governor’s mansions this November with campaign messages centered on parenting and affordability.
It’s a notable campaign shift from previous election cycles: This year, female candidates focused less on the historic nature of their bids, or culture war issues that have long fomented divisions over gender and electability. Instead, they zeroed in on an economic message emphasizing bread-and-butter concerns — like how rising costs were squeezing families, including theirs.
“Moms understand kitchen table issues better than perhaps anyone,” said Jessica Mackler, president of EMILY’s List, the group that recruits and backs female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights. “They understand how to stretch a paycheck. They understand what it is like to walk through a grocery store and have to put something back on the shelf.”
Senate, House and gubernatorial campaigns spent a combined $72 million on ads featuring the words “mom” or “mother” in 2026, according to AdImpact — a 50% increase from the $48 million spent in 2024 and double the spending on these kind of ads from 2022.
In many races, Democrats leaned on their experiences as parents to dismiss the kind of culture war attacks that have been effective for Republicans in recent years.
“They want to run an entire campaign saying that I’m too woke … I plan to spend an entire campaign focused on the fact that working people are too broke,” Democratic Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa said in one of her final TV ads. “My pronouns are mom, Texan and soon-to-be governor.”
Campaign messaging around gender and representation can be fraught: In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s “I’m With Her” campaign slogan fell short as she failed in her pledge to break the “highest, hardest glass ceiling.” In 2024, Kamala Harris’ campaign was decidedly less overt in its messaging about the barrier-breaking potential of her candidacy. But debates about gender seemed inescapable as Trump called her “weak” and then-Sen. JD Vance said the Democratic Party was run by “childless cat ladies.”
This cycle was different.
In a 2026 environment driven by concerns about affordability and the cost of living, Democratic operatives said it was an easy decision for women and mothers in particular to lean on their home lives to connect with voters.
At least 159 women will serve in the 120th Congress, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, with Democratic women outnumbering Republicans by roughly five-to-one. Many of the newly elected Democrats are younger moms.
Their victories, especially in battleground districts and states long seen as Republican strongholds, have emboldened Democratic groups dedicated to electing more women, who argue the candidates offer a blueprint for winning races going forward.
Veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said her party’s female candidates “really got points for having the right priorities and being in touch with real people’s lives.”
“It used to be that women with young children just didn’t run, and we were electing all these women who had grown children or no children, and then we were electing women with young children, but they were hiding them, if you will,” Lake said. “Now [candidates] were bringing them out as major credentialers, and that has been changing over time.”
Winning Democratic candidates told POLITICO they did not hesitate to talk about their families and personal experiences on the trail.
“I didn’t need anyone giving me talking points on how expensive groceries are,” said Representative-elect Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who won a heavily Republican House district in northern Nevada. “I don’t need anyone telling me how expensive gas is because I am filling up my tank … running kids all around town.”
JoAnna Mendoza, a single mom who flipped a swing district in the Tucson, Arizona, suburbs – said she spent the night before the election in the emergency room with her 10-year-old son.
“That is what parents face. That is what moms go through. Their kids are sick, they have to take time off of work, or they have to leave work,” Mendoza said. “It is important for people to see themselves in their elected leaders.”
Uncomfortable questions surrounding gender and electability nevertheless persist in the run-up to the next presidential election. Some in the Democratic Party at least privately question whether they should nominate another woman at the top of the ticket in 2028.
“My message to people who would say that is: cut it out,” said Mackler. “This election clearly demonstrates that women are the drivers of Democrats’ path to power, and we should embrace their leadership at all levels of the ballot.”
Lake, the Democratic pollster, said the surge in female Democratic victors showed how fed up voters are with the status quo, calling it a “Hail Mary for change.”
“It is so bad, it is so failed, we’re going to elect these women who will hold people accountable,” she said, adding that voters, particularly women, “were really upset with how out of touch the older white men seemed with their families’ lives” after a decade of Trump and Joe Biden running the country.
Democratic candidates do not have a monopoly on talking about family life. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the Republican governor of Arkansas, sailed to reelection last week with a campaign that highlighted her three children and efforts to cut grocery taxes and bring down the cost of living for other families. Messages around motherhood also featured prominently at the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, earlier this year.
The messaging is part of a broader shift in the public conversation, said Abby McCloskey, a conservative policy analyst.
“For a long time, to be taken seriously in politics, your professional side went first and your personal side went far after, and that was especially the case for women,” she said. “I think there’s been broader cultural shifts that, and probably in a desire for authenticity and connection, why that is no longer necessarily the case.”Democratic campaign veterans said the renewed focus on motherhood gave their candidates an edge as they try to counter swing voters’ deep-seated biases against female candidates.
One Democratic pollster, granted anonymity to speak candidly about voters’ biases, said voters still have “bad reactions” to women running for office who are perceived as “cold.” Talking about motherhood and family life, the pollster said, allowed candidates to come across as warm while pushing back against the idea that their candidates are too radical or left-wing.
“In some of these places where you have to win over a bunch of conservative folks, the candidate can come across as just a regular mom,” the pollster said. “Not a scary, left, woke lady.”
The beginning of Jocelyn Benson’s campaign launch video showed the Democrat hugging her son in their family’s kitchen. Now Michigan’s Democratic governor-elect, Benson told POLITICO she was “very intentional” about inviting kids to join her on stage during her celebration on Election Night.
“I think leaders in this moment, and I think parents, moms in particular, recognize this as an opportunity to show a different way of leading and of being a good person and a good citizen,” she said.
Read MorePolitics, DC, 2026 Elections, Annie Andrews, Jocelyn Benson, Celinda Lake, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Gina Hinojosa