WASHINGTON — When Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, beat Scott Brown to win re-election on Tuesday, her supporters saw history being made — although not by Ms. Shaheen.
“Scott Brown made feminist history,” crowed an email from Emily’s List, the political action committee, noting that Mr. Brown also lost to Elizabeth Warren in 2012. As Stephanie Schriock, the committee’s president, said Wednesday: “He lost two Senate races in two states against two Democratic women. That’s pretty awesome.”
The Shaheen victory was a rare bright spot for Democratic women in a mostly gloomy year. While Republican women fared somewhat better — in Iowa, Joni Ernst rode her biography as a pig-castrating “farm girl” into the Senate, and Mia Love of Utah became the first black female Republican elected to the House — 2014 was hardly the year of the woman.
True, the election did set a record of sorts: Next year, more than 100 women will serve in Congress for the first time in history. But women in both parties say the growth is incremental and the numbers are disappointing.
Joni Ernst’s Victory Speech
Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, spoke after defeating Representative Bruce Braley, a Democrat.
Video by KCRG, via The Associated Press on Publish Date November 5, 2014. Photo by Eric Thayer for The New York Times.A rundown: Of 15 women running for the Senate, just four won. There are now 20 female senators. Next year, there will still be 20, unless Senator Mary L. Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat, survives a difficult runoff, which would bring the number to 21.
In the House, there are currently 79 female voting members. Depending on the outcome of several races that were still too close to call, that number will range from 81 to 85 next year, according to a tally by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
As for female governors, there are currently five. The election Tuesday did not change that. One Republican woman, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, is retiring. Her departure will be offset by the victory of a Democratic woman, Gina M. Raimondo, who won the governorship in Rhode Island.
“Women are not making dramatic gains in elective office, certainly at the highest level,” said Olympia J. Snowe, the Republican former senator from Maine, where another female Republican, Senator Susan Collins, easily won re-election on Tuesday. “We are making some strides, but obviously not giant ones.”
Democratic women had an especially difficult night, with the defeat of Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina, as well as two of the party’s brightest Senate prospects, Alison Lundergan Grimes of Kentucky and Michelle Nunn of Georgia.
Ms. Grimes’s loss had been expected, but Ms. Nunn had been running a tight race with David Perdue, a Republican. Yet she lost by eight points — an outcome that Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who raised $2.6 million to elect Democratic women this year, attributed to a Republican wave that washed away Democratic men and women with equal fury.
Jeanne Shaheen’s Victory Speech
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, spoke after defeating Scott Brown, the Republican candidate.
Video by AP on Publish Date November 5, 2014. Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters.“Of course, I was disappointed that some of my colleagues didn’t win,” said Ms. Gillibrand, whose recent book, “Off the Sidelines,” encourages women to get more involved in politics. “But I think we see that wave elections really are gender-neutral.”
Democrats have historically outpaced Republicans in nominating women for high office, and this year twice as many female Democrats as female Republicans ran in House, Senate and governors’ races. So when Democrats have a bad year, female candidates have a bad year, too.
Studies show that women are less likely to be interested in running for office — and are harder to recruit — than men are. There is also an intense debate between strategists and academics about whether gender matters in campaigns. Scholars who study voter behavior say philosophy and party affiliation matter far more.
“There’s almost no evidence at all that people put candidates’ sex first and foremost in their decision making,” said Kathleen Dolan, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
But while “that may be true in a hermetically sealed academic study,” said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist, “it is not true in practice.” She said news media coverage of women still focused heavily on “feminine characteristics” like cleavage, weeping and hairdos.
“Where are the comparable stories about paunchy beer bellies and bad comb-overs?” she said.
2014 Midterm Elections Live Coverage
One Democratic strategist, Mary Anne Marsh, said female candidates often had a harder time raising money because their networks were not as extensive as those of men.
Another Democratic strategist, Celinda Lake, said being a woman could give a candidate an edge in Democratic primaries, which are typically dominated by female voters, because “women candidates get the attention of women voters.” But Republican women, she said, often have a tough time surviving their primary races because they tend to be more moderate than the conservative Republican primary electorate.
Ms. Ernst, who on Tuesday became the first woman in Iowa to win election to Congress, is one exception. Ms. Love of Utah is another.
Ms. Ernst’s conservative views on reproductive rights — she has advocated “personhood” for fetuses and once said doctors who perform abortions should be prosecuted — make her anathema to Democratic women and groups like Planned Parenthood. But she did not need them to win a Republican primary dominated by men.
Ms. Love lost a 2012 race against Representative Jim Matheson, a six-term Democrat. But after Mr. Matheson announced his retirement, Ms. Love beat a Republican businessman in a primary and eked out a win on Tuesday over Doug Owens, a Democrat, and three other men.
Republicans are promoting the victories of Ms. Love and Ms. Ernst as making history. But Debbie Walsh, the executive director of the Center for American Women and Politics, said that “the bigger story is about a missed opportunity for Republicans in bringing more women in.”
Despite the wave of Republican victories, Ms. Walsh said that next year men would still account for about 90 percent of the Republicans in Congress.