Weekly Media Round Up: July 31, 2026

Gender on the Ballot Team | Jul 31, 2026

Welcome to the Media Round Up! We’ve collected and shared our favorite gender + politics stories from this week.

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Marcye Scott, Everton Blair Head to Runoff in Georgia’s13th Congressional District Special Election
CBS News, Zachary Bynum

In Tuesday’s special election to fill the vacancy in Georgia’s 13th Congressional district, none of the five candidates secured a majority vote, so the two highest vote getters – Marcye Scott and Everton Blair – are advancing to a runoff on August 25th. Scott is the daughter of Rep. David Scott, who served in the role until his passing in April.

The winner of the runoff election will complete the unexpired term in the 13th district, but will not be on the November ballot to serve in the 120th Congress. In the November election, state Rep. Jasmine Clark, a Democrat, will face Republican Air Force veteran Jonathan Chavez, who ran unopposed in the GOP primary.

Women Set New Records for Candidacies in 2026, Data Shows
Campaigns and Elections, Max Greenwood

There is both good news and bad when considering the number of women candidates filing to run for office in 2026.

Fresh data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University shows that 85 women are running as major-party candidates for governor across 36 states, breaking the previous mark of 69 set in 2022. The number of women running for U.S. House seats is also nearing an all-time record, with 580 filed as major-party candidates – just three short of the all-time record of 583 set in 2020. Of that group, 397 are Democratic women, a new record that breaks the previous high of 356 set in 2018. That number could still climb given Louisiana’s delayed candidate filing deadline on August 7. Republican women’s House candidacies, meanwhile, sit at 183, short of the party’s own record of 261 set in 2022.

Despite the overall gains, CAWP’s data points to persistent disparities. The greatest disparities appear for women of color, already underrepresented at every level of government. Women’s Senate candidacies overall remain short of the 70-candidate record set in 2022, with women splitting evenly between the parties at 32 Democratic and 32 Republican candidates. Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women’s candidacies remain low across most offices, though CAWP flagged a notably high number running for governor this cycle, at seven candidates. CAWP’s Election Analysis website maintains extensive data and analysis of U.S. election results with particular attention to results for women.

Empowering the Next Generation of Black Girl Civic Leaders
NBC4 Washington

A recent article in EBONY Magazine explored why politically active Black women are feeling exhausted. News4 Washington spoke with Harlie Williams, a rising junior at Harvard and founder of Black Girls Govern – a non-partisan, nonprofit empowering the next generation of female Black civic leaders. Her efforts to build community, engagement and a civic home for Black girls include sending campus ambassadors to schools around the country to conduct voter education and to create opportunities for engagement. Williams was inspired by her own lived experience, where civic leadership and inclusion opportunities were limited. Her goal is to enable Black girls to see themselves as leaders.

‘Deeply human cost’ of US aid cuts worse for women and girls, new study finds
The Independent, Liz Cookman

A new study has found that the early months of the Trump administration’s cuts to global aid have had a “deeply human cost.” The research, published in the British Medical Journals (BMJ) Public Health journal, found that aid cuts have disrupted health and humanitarian systems, which have disproportionately affected women, girls, and marginalized groups. The investigation discovered that the aid cuts immediately disrupted sexual and reproductive health rights and interrupted HIV treatment; vulnerable communities, such as pregnant women and newborns, have seen significant impacts due to declining aid. “The findings lay bare what many of us on the ground have known: The funding disruption was a systems-level shock with a deeply human cost,” said co-author Julia Kosgei.

This domestic violence shelter was told it no longer aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities
The 19th* News, Jasmine Mithani

The federal government is the largest funder of domestic violence services, but in 2025, one shelter saw its federal funding revoked for “no longer aligning” with the Trump administration’s priorities. The San Francisco Asian Women’s Shelter – which offers a 24/7 crisis hotline, houses victims of domestic violence, and offers programs for human trafficking survivors – had its $500,000 grant terminated. This funding cut is not unique to the SFAWS – over the past 18 months, organizations across the country contend that the administration’s changes are “slowly suffocating” nonprofits that constitute the country’s support net for victims of gender-based violence. The SFAWS’s experience may, unfortunately, become the norm: the administration is currently proposing a rule that would simplify the ability to terminate government grants for political reasons.

Meet the woman behind the world’s first environmental justice encyclopedia
The 19th* News, Jenae Barnes

For decades, the public image of the environmental movement was narrowly White and male — a picture that erased the long history of Black, Indigenous and other communities of color that organized around environmental harm, and left the movement incomplete. Dorceta Taylor often found herself as the only Black student in her science classes in the United States, a new experience for her after growing up in Jamaica. Throughout her American education, she recalled being told that “Black people weren’t interested in the environment.” As an environmental sociologist, Taylor has dedicated her career to reframing and expanding representation in the environmental justice movement. One of the earliest pioneers in the field, she blazed a trail of firsts. She is now spearheading a landmark project — editing the world’s first environmental justice encyclopedia. The one-of-a-kind resource, published this month, documents key events, institutions and people of color in the environmental justice movement from all over the world. Taylor said that having the “lived perspective” of being a Black woman, who often bears the brunt of the effects of environmental justice issues, informed her decision to be inclusive with the material, which includes representation by 26 nations. Her work has engaged students and hundreds of contributors. The encyclopedia includes hundreds of articles, including a contribution from former Georgia state representative and political activist Stacey Abrams. The project is supported by Yale University.

What makes a woman a witch? Financial independence
The Guardian, Lucianne Tonti

Though women are no longer burned at the stake for practicing witchcraft, The Guardian examines how the label of “witch” still carries weight today. Historically, it was dangerous for women to attain financial independence or status: when women inherited property, for example, they were more susceptible to witchcraft allegations. Additionally, women who sought economic freedom or attained inheritance rights were disproportionately prosecuted for being witches, underscoring how witchcraft allegations ultimately became a way to stifle women’s power. Still today, powerful and outspoken women are often portrayed as “dangerous” or “threatening,” making the word “witch” a lasting label for women who subvert traditional expectations.

Newly discovered Susan B. Anthony letter details her push for women’s right to vote
NPR, Hosts

During the presidential election of 1872, suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony and dozens of others convinced election officials to let them vote by invoking the 14th Amendment that granted citizens the right to vote. Many of them were arrested shortly thereafter. A week after Anthony’s arrest, she wrote an impassioned letter to then-president Ulysses S. Grant, suggesting that Congress could pass a law to clarify citizenship and voting rights under the amendment. There is no evidence that the letter was received by the president, or that it was ever sent. Nevertheless, it illustrates the lengths to which suffrage advocates would go to plead their case for enfranchisement. It would be another half century before the 19th amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution

Ida Schmertz, Who Studied Women in Politics, Dies at 91
The New York Times, Jeré Longman

In its obituary of Ida Schmertz, The New York Times remembers an influential “behind-the-scenes” feminist who served as a founding director of the first academic research center dedicated to American women and politics. Schmertz, who passed away on July 2nd at 91, worked in Democratic politics when she learned about the formation of the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University. Together with Ruth Mandel, an English professor at the University, Schmertz became a founding director of the center, which is largely deemed the premier research institute for the study of women in politics in the United States. After leaving the center in 1975, she became an adviser on women’s issues to New York Gov. Hugh L. Carey; in that position, she involved herself in successful efforts to hire the first female dockworkers in New York in 1979. “Ida was the mentor and sponsor for the first generation of women leaders in business and politics in New York and beyond,” said Kathryn Wylde, a recently retired chief executive of the nonprofit Partnership for New York City.