A New Project Backing Democratic Women Is Injecting Cash in State-Level Races

The Women in Democracy initiative pledges to raise money for candidates pushing bills that expand voting access.

Erin Murphy
“I have experienced over and over again that women in office bring a different level of productivity,” Minnesota state Sen. Erin Murphy told NOTUS. Trisha Ahmed/AP

Donald Trump’s presidency has ramped up the urgency in Democratic circles to pass pro-democracy legislation. A new project wants to give that movement — and the women legislators leading it — a fundraising boost as they try to expand voting access.

It’s a much-welcome injection of cash in an election year where Democrats have struggled to bring in small-dollar donations and aren’t seeing blockbuster fundraising as a whole.

The Women in Democracy project, organized by the Open Democracy PAC, is meant to raise money for candidates to free up time on their schedules that would typically be spent on fundraising. Women make up about a third of state legislators — the most in U.S. history — and have been active in pushing voting bills on the state level.