How Women Can Win Their Races This Year

While gender equity advocates are excited about the prospect of a record number of women running for office this year, in order to see more women in public office, they have to win those elections. That’s where VoteRunLead comes in. 

 

The next three episodes of The 23% are in partnership with VoteRunLead, a non-partisan organization that trains women to run for office and, most importantly, to win the seats that they run for. Today on the show we’re chatting with Erin Vilardi, the founder of VoteRunLead. The organization has trained note-worthy women like Ilhan Omar, the first Somali-American lawmaker in the U.S, and Brenda Lopez, the first Latina elected to the Georgia state assembly.

 

On the show today, Vilardi discusses trends she’s seeing in the wave of women they’ve trained ahead of the 2018 elections, tiny steps any woman can take if she is thinking about getting involved in local politics, and fundraising and asking for money—something women tend to by shyer about. 

 

“These myths about politics, that it’s not a place to get anything done, they keep women out...we think we can’t get anything done in politics, and there’s been a shift. We’ve been neglecting our local government, this 23 percent, and it’s time to take a second look and think ‘hey I’m the right person to do that and make a difference in my community.”