WOMEN VOTE! Chronology

2006

  • WOMEN VOTE! sends 468,336 pieces of mail, makes 79,603 phone calls, and knocks on 4,045 doors to educate targeted women about Betty Sutton’s record of honest leadership, helping Sutton win an eight-way primary in Ohio’s 13th congressional district.
  • Plans are underway to conduct major voter mobilization efforts through our WOMEN VOTE! project in battleground states including Michigan, to help re-elect Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Debbie Stabenow, and take control of the state legislature; Minnesota, for Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar; Missouri, for Senate candidate Claire McCaskill, and in key winnable congressional districts.
  • Research from EMILY’s List’s 2005 Women’s Monitor shows vast opportunities to elect pro-choice Democratic women in 2006 up and down the ticket.

2004

  • WOMEN VOTE! sends 3,411,520 pieces of mail, makes 1,423,641 telephone calls, and knocks on 954,890 doors to educate targeted women on the issues.
  • WOMEN VOTE! projects in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania help elect three new women to the U.S. House: Gwen Moore (Wisc.-04), Melissa Bean (Ill.-08), and Allyson Schwartz (Penn.-13).
  • EMILY’s List launches Air EMILY, chartering four private planes to fly 534 volunteers from Washington, D.C., to Florida to join 625 local volunteers and 154 additional members who traveled to Florida at their own expense — more than 1,300 volunteers ready to get out the vote.

2002

  • WOMEN VOTE! sends 6,630,906 pieces of mail and makes 1,989,562 telephone calls to educate targeted groups of women on the issues.
  • WOMEN VOTE! projects help elect Jennifer Granholm the first woman governor of Michigan. In Arizona, WOMEN VOTE! helps to elect Janet Napolitano governor.
  • EMILY’s List launches the “Picture Project,” an innovative research initiative, which used one-on-one interviews with voters to gauge their reactions to images commonly used in political advertising.

2000

  • WOMEN VOTE! projects in seven states send 10,281,120 pieces of mail and make more than two million phone calls to educate more than eight million women voters.
  • Eight of nine new Democratic senators are elected from states with WOMEN VOTE! projects — including four new pro-choice Democratic women senators! In the House, four new women win seats, and every Democratic woman incumbent running is re-elected. New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen is elected to a third term, and Ruth Ann Minner becomes the first woman governor of Delaware.
  • The EMILY's List Women's Monitor post-election poll measures the largest gender gap ever — 22 points — in the 2000 presidential election.

1998

  • WOMEN VOTE! campaigns in 26 states send out nearly eight million pieces of mail and make more than two million phone calls to 3.4 million women voters urging them to vote.
  • Democrats up and down the ticket benefit: Sens. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Patty Murray (Wash.), and New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen are re-elected.
  • WOMEN VOTE! helps elect a new pro-choice Democratic woman senator and seven new pro-choice Democratic women to the U.S. House — the largest increase ever in a non-presidential year.

1996

  • EMILY's List works with the Democratic National Committee, state parties, and labor organizations to produce WOMEN VOTE! projects in 31 states, delivering 7.5 million pieces of mail, and 500,000 phone calls to 2.7 million targeted women voters.
  • EMILY's List helps elect nine new pro-choice Democratic women to the House, one to the Senate, and Jeanne Shaheen as governor of New Hampshire.
  • In the spring of 1996, EMILY’s List WOMEN VOTE!® begins a series of national surveys of women voters called the EMILY’s List Women’s Monitor, helping establish EMILY’s List as an expert on women voters’ political attitudes. WOMEN VOTE! commissions two national surveys, six surveys in WOMEN VOTE! states, and four focus groups to help determine successful direct mail messages for women voters and how to motivate them to vote.

1995

  • EMILY's List takes WOMEN VOTE! national, launching EMILY's List WOMEN VOTE!®, a $10 million, multi-election national voter mobilization project, at a celebration with President Clinton in Washington, D.C.

1994

  • In a prototype WOMEN VOTE! project, the California Democratic Party and EMILY's List target 902,575 women voters who had no history of voting in non-presidential elections, with mail and phone calls urging them to vote. An astounding 416,594 targeted California women vote at the polls or by absentee ballot.
  • WOMEN VOTE! makes the difference for Democrats up and down the ticket, particularly Sen. Dianne Feinstein, re-elected by just 165,562 votes, and Rep. Jane Harman, re-elected by 812 votes.
  • Women vote in much smaller numbers than in the presidential election of 1992, leading to the GOP takeover of the House and Senate.