Stay by zedd and alessia ]ara playing by bruceising ]pringsteen playing becky good morning, everybody. Martin, andisher welcome to our virtual series, women on wednesdays. We are glad you could join us. Nonpartisan, non personal institute. Andupport Research Discussions like this come on women in politics. With less than two weeks ago before the election, we wanted to get an update on what republican groups are doing to elect more gop women to congress. A few weeks ago, we got an update on the democratic side from the leaders on emmas lease emilys list, and we want to hear from women on the others of the aisle. From wpi,o women julie conway, executive director of v. I. E. W. Pac, and rebecca schuller, executive director of women for winning for women pac. Thank you to both for being here. Before we start, i want to let everyone know that we will save some time for questions. At the bottom of your skin, you screen, will notice the button to ask questions. Please feel free to do that during our discussion. If you miss any of the discussion or you want to share with your friends, a replay will be available at the same link podcast link you used to register. Rebecca, welcome. With less than two weeks to go, lets rewind the clock a bit to 2018. The 2018 midterms were not good year for republican women. Of the 36 new women elected to the house, only one was a republican. The total number of republican women in the house fell to 13. That was the lowest point in the last two decades. That is compared to the 88 Democratic Women in the house, so needless to say, you guys have had your work cut out for you in the last two years. I just wanted to start to see if each of you could give us a sense of your organization and what your strategy has been in the last few years to kind of close that gap, and what your forecast is in the next few weeks. Julie, we will start with you. Said, i briany i run v. I. E. W. Value inh stands for electing women. The only good news about 2018 was the bar was set pretty low for 2020. We are expecting great things in 13 days. We have been working really hard. We have great candidates. It has been a record year in terms of republican women. 228 is the magic number. It is about twice what it was before in our alltime high. Out of those 228, we have 98 for women running for the u. S. House. We are excited about that. The reality continues. As betsy said, there are a lot of Democratic Women in the house. It will take a while to get us to some sort of parody. We know we will make some inroads the cycle. We have great women running, probably five or seven was a really heavily favored to win already, which puts us in a pretty good spot to start. I do know how deep you want to go on that. I dont know if you want to give it to rebecca, to give her brief, and then we can go into more specific races. Betsy yeah, let rebecca talk a little bit, and then we can watch as the election clock ticks down, and we watch the results coming in. Rebecca, give us a little bit on winning for women. Rebecca absolutely. Thank you for having us. I think it is events like this that show both sides of the aisle and the momentum that is behind republican women. As you mentioned, i am involved with an Organization Called winning for women. Under that auspice, we have a few organizations. Connected pac and then also a super pac. The winning for women action fund. Winning for women was founded at the end of 2017 to come in and work with organizations like you v. I. E. W. Pac and others. You probably heard of some, really to try to come in and heavilythat sort of i sort of imbalanced ratio of gop women. I think we saw 2018 as a true rallying cry, when we saw those numbers dip down to 15, and then, due to retirements, down to 11. That showed all of us the true need for smart, efficient, you know, wellrun organizations that could come in and identify and recruit and get these women in, and then figure out how to help them through that election cycle. I know we will get into all of this. I think where you have seen a real deficiency on the gop side is the surroundsound support that, frankly the left has been , good at that for decades. Organizations like emilys list and others. We want to make sure our women are getting the same support. You got aboute come as you said, finding and recruiting women to run this year . Rebecca that is a really good question and one that i think has plagued our side for quite a while. And, you know, i think julie is a real standout in developing those relationships and identifying, you know, candidates early. I think one of the true factors that creates challenges for us is when you do not have a inch, when youre not looking ahead, you are not going to have the women when the opportunity comes out. For us at winning for women, and i know dooley has been doing the same, you know, the day before election day, we were trying to look at a map and figure out where were the opportunities. There were some great candidates, through wordofmouth, legislatures, organizations, etc. , and we would go talk to them. Again we have seen some real , dividends this year. We are at Record Numbers of women who have filed to run as republicans. That has translated to a Record Number of women and the general. I do think we are seeing a positive, with republican women candidates, particularly in the house. Betsy julie, why do you think there has been an uptick . Do you think 2018 was a wakeup call . Or what are the other reasons for the definite increase in republican women running in this cycle . I think it was a definite wakeup call. A lot of republican women saw Democratic Women get elected. Hello,es. Obama florida it is good to be back in florida. Can everybody please give it up for george . What an Outstanding Young man senior atnumber one