WASHINGTON — New data reveals the number of women running in the 2026 elections is slightly up from 2024, but experts say there is still progress to be made with women’s representation in public office overall. 

The number of women running for governor has reached an all-time high this election cycle, and the number seeking a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives could also set a record, according to July 20 data from The Center for American Women and Politics, or CAWP. 

The center, part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, collects data on women’s representation in federal, state and local government. 

The center also conducts research and runs educational programs on the role of women in politics. Its mission is to increase female involvement in public life. 

Women in the midterms

There are 85 women major-party candidates running for governor across 36 states this year, a number that significantly exceeds the previous record of 69, set in 2022. 

Fifty-one of those women are Democrats, another record, and 34 are Republicans. 

On the congressional level, 580 women are currently major-party contenders for the U.S. House, a figure that is just three away from the 2018 and 2020 record of 583 women candidates. 

That record could be broken once Louisiana reaches its candidate filing deadline for the House on Aug. 7, according to CAWP.  

The number of Democratic House candidates who are women has already reached an all-time high at 387. The remaining 183 women running are Republicans. 

In the Senate, 64 women from major parties are running for a seat, exactly half of them Democrats and half of them Republicans. The record for women Senate candidates was set in 2022 at 70. 

Fairly high numbers of women would need to emerge as Senate candidates in Maine and South Carolina to beat that record of 70, said CAWP Director of Data Chelsea Hill during a media briefing with other CAWP research experts on Tuesday.

A day before the briefing, Republican Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, who was sworn in July 14 to replace her late brother, Lindsey Graham, announced plans to run for a full six-year term following the encouragement of President Donald Trump. 

Although record numbers of congressional women candidates have not yet been reached in either the U.S. House or Senate, the overall number of women running for Congress is up compared to the last election cycle. 

In 2024, the number of women who sought seats in Congress dropped after having previously increased for three consecutive cycles, a phenomenon that CAWP later described as “evidence of stalled progress toward gender parity,” Hill said. 

Despite the increase in women seeking office over the years, female representation is still low when taken as a percentage of all candidates running for Congress and state governors. 

According to another set of CAWP data from July 20, women make up 27% of total candidacies for the U.S. House and 23.9% of the total for the Senate in 2026. About 25% of gubernationarial candidates are women. 

Milestones within reach 

But at the same time, CAWP experts said at the media briefing, there are many milestones women could achieve in the 2026 election cycle, including firsts for women in certain government positions and for “women of specific racial and ethnic backgrounds and within either party.” 

They pointed to current Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, who are both running to become the first women to serve as governors of their respective states. 

And Deb Haaland, the former U.S. secretary of the Interior currently running in New Mexico, could become the first-ever Native American woman governor in any state if she wins in November. 

At the congressional level, names such as Milat Keros, Aisha Wahab, Denise Powell and more have the potential to break barriers for women in public office. 

Keros is in place to become the first Black woman to represent Colorado, Wahab the first Middle Eastern or North African woman to serve from California and Powell the first Democratic woman to represent Nebraska in Congress.

At the end of the media briefing, CAWP Scholar and Director of Research Kelly Dittmar said the center’s 2026 candidacy data could be used as a tool to study and open up a broader discussion about women’s political pathways, nodding particularly to Blackburn and Klobuchar’s gubernatorial runs. 

“When we think about women moving to be chief executives of a state as a potential pathway to the presidency, (it’s) also something we need to always keep our eye on,” she said. 

CAWP’s data focuses on major party candidates and will continue to be updated regularly to account for upcoming state filing deadlines and congressional primary results. 

WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are pushing back against a proposed Trump administration rule introduced by the Office of Management and Budget that would substantially change the way federal grants are reviewed and distributed.

Over the past few weeks, several groups of lawmakers have written public comment letters to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought expressing strong opposition to the new draft rule, which would give political appointees the power to decide what institutions receive grant funding, among other revisions. 

A summary of the rule cites the Biden administration as to why it is needed. “Federal awards were often used during those years to promote a ‘woke’ policy agenda that did not reflect the values of the vast majority of the American public,” it says, pointing to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies.

Democrats said the proposal exceeds the office’s authority, will make it harder for grant recipients to carry out funding priorities established by Congress and would turn federal grants into a tool for President Donald Trump to “unilaterally advance his partisan agenda and punish political rivals.” 

The draft rule would allow Trump to “terminate or suspend any grant at any time for any reason and without any notice,” they said.

“Ultimately, these changes will make it harder for grant recipients to apply for and manage federal funds – undermining public safety, public health, economic competitiveness, and the government’s ability to address rising costs,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in their July 1 letter to Vought. 

Maryland Democrats in Congress and members of the Congressional Community Safety Caucus, led by Reps. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, LaMonica McIver of New Jersey and Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, also wrote letters urging OMB to rescind its proposed new rule. 

Hundreds of billions in funds affected

The more than 100-page draft rule, published in collaboration with 41 other federal grant-making agencies on May 29 and titled “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,” would change the framework used to evaluate grant applications as well as guidelines for cost sharing.

It would potentially affect hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding at universities, nonprofit organizations and other U.S. institutions, according to SciLine, an independent nonprofit service for journalists and scientists run out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Under the proposed rule, federal grants could not be used to “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” DEI initiatives. 

Awards would also in many cases have to “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities,” and agencies would be allowed to cancel funding that is “not effective at achieving program goals or Federal agency priorities” or “no longer in the Federal Government’s interest.” 

“The overarching goal of OMB’s proposed revisions is to improve transparency, accountability, and oversight for how Federal taxpayer dollars are used in the context of Federal grantmaking,” according to the executive summary of the rule.

OMB officials say they could implement the new draft rule as early as Oct. 1. 

Community violence intervention programs 

During the public comment period for the draft rule, which ran from May 29 to July 13, congressional Democrats slammed its vague language and the implications it holds for many institutions that rely on federal funds. 

Maryland’s senators and Democratic representatives in their July 10 letter to Vought denounced the rule for changing a process traditionally based on merit. “The federal grantmaking process includes essential, non-political guardrails that this rule seeks to eviscerate,” they wrote.

They also said the proposed rule contains a slew of new undefined standards for grants, including that they must adhere to “gold standard science” and cannot reflect “anti-American values,” that recipients may not be able to understand or comply with. 

Maryland institutions, often known as hubs for scientific research and innovation, have been hit hard by National Institutes of Health funding cuts and mass federal layoffs since Trump began his second term in 2025. Local governments and schools that receive federal funds have also taken blows, as has the state’s overall economy. 

In their July 13 letter, members of the Congressional Community Safety Caucus voiced concerns over how the draft rule could specifically affect community violence intervention programs. 

Community violence intervention programs, local efforts that have been linked to drops in violent crime rates in cities across the country, rely on federal grants for “state and local government investments, hospital partnerships, philanthropy, and research support,” according to the lawmakers’ letter.

The new draft rule, they wrote, would jeopardize the operation of these programs by allowing Trump administration officials to “withhold, suspend, or terminate grants, or change terms and conditions mid-implementation, forcing grantees to operate in a tumultuous environment.” 

The administration has already made cuts to parts of the Office of Justice Programs, further limiting the funds available to community violence intervention programs.

Other responses 

Though opposition to the proposed rule is mainly coming from Democratic lawmakers, some bipartisan criticism regarding the rule’s broad scope and fast timeline exists. 

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, on July 6 asked Vought to extend the proposal’s public comment period at least 90 days and “withdraw portions of the rule that would potentially harm small and rural communities and scientific and biomedical research.”

“While I agree these principles should guide the administration and oversight of Federal funds, the rule would impose new, burdensome requirements on award recipients … and conflict with Congress’ control over the federal funding process,” she wrote.  

OMB did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on lawmaker pushback to the proposed rule. But Vought took to social media last month to express his view of the opposition. 

“The freakout by those on the Left subsidized by taxpayer funds over OMB’s update of the regulation governing federal grant making tells you how important it is to keep the bureaucracies from leaking out spending that is woke, wasteful, and contra to the policies of the Trump Administration thru the NGOs,” he wrote. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries rallied a key group for his party Thursday, telling the American Federation of Teachers’ national convention that, if successful in November’s midterm elections, a Democratic majority in the House would pursue several progressive policies. 

The New York congressman addressed affordability, voting rights and what he called “the most corrupt administration in American history” while drawing personal connections to the conventiongoers. He said he was grateful for the work of public employees and the unions that represent them, having been raised by two union members in a modest-income household. 

“Organized labor has always been there for me, and organized labor is there for the American people,” Jeffries said as the crowd, gathered in a large room at the Walter. E. Washington Convention Center, erupted into applause. 

The AFT is a 1.8 million-member union representing educators, healthcare workers and public employees from across the country. The organization hosts a national convention every two years.

The union is a major benefactor to Democrats. Its political action committee contributed more than $1.9 million to Democratic candidates and $2.1 million to the House Majority PAC, which works with House Democratic leadership, in the 2024 election cycle, according to the campaign finance tracker Open Secrets. 

Jeffries urged the union’s members to help Democrats win enough House races in November to return the party to the majority next year. Jeffries would very likely become House speaker if that happens.

“Are we going to take our country back?” Jeffries asked the crowd to open his address. “Are you ready to help us take back control of the United States House of Representatives in November?”

Campaign promises

Jeffries said House Democrats would push back against “MAGA extremists” and block efforts to undermine popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare. And they will continue working to drive down the cost of childcare, healthcare and other household expenses, he added. 

In addition to promising better living conditions for Americans, Jeffries said Democratic leaders would fight to “clean up corruption” within President Donald Trump’s administration. 

He also said they would work to end the war with Iran and rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiatives, because the agency “is completely and totally out of control.” 

ICE officers have fatally shot immigrants this month in two separate incidents in Maine and Texas.

Spotlight on education

Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, also spoke at the convention about the significant effect that public education had on him growing up.  

It was thanks to the support of his parents and public school teachers, as well as the help of Pell grants and student loans, that he was able to become a U.S. senator, he said. 

Now, what “keeps (him) up at night” is the fact that many children today don’t have access to the same opportunities, which he said would shrink the pool of future leaders in science, law and education.

“We have to invest in our children because we don’t know where the cure for cancer’s going to come from,” he said. 

He called for an increase in teachers’ pay, among other policies.

State of the union

AFT President Randi Weingarten also delivered her keynote address Thursday, touching on themes ranging from income inequality to the increasing power of big tech. 

“Our union stands at the intersection of the ways that regular people gain and exercise power in our democracy—through public education, unions and voting,” she said. “This election will decide whether we are a country governed by the people or ruled by the powerful, a country of opportunity or oligarchy, a country whose people live in freedom or in fear.” 

On Wednesday, Republicans from the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce took a first step toward dismantling the Department of Education, approving a package of 10 bills that would permanently reallocate some of the department’s duties to other federal bodies. 

“The House and Senate have less responsibility for public schooling than statehouses across the country,” Weingarten told reporters after her speech. “Yet the people who run the House (Education and) Workforce Committee spend more time fighting teachers and fighting unions and fighting against a better life for all of us … than actually helping kids have opportunity in a capitalist system.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House voted Tuesday to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide in a bipartisan move that pushes the country one step closer to ending the long-contested ritual of semiannual clock changes.  

The House passed the measure, called the Sunshine Protection Act, 308-117. Its future in the Senate is uncertain.

Introduced by Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida, the Sunshine Protection Act passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee 48-1 in May and carries strong support from President Donald Trump.

“This bipartisan legislation represents a popular, common-sense reform and would benefit Americans by protecting precious daylight during the evening, when people are most likely to be awake and active,” the White House said in a statement Tuesday. “If (the bill) were presented to the President in its current form, his advisors would recommend that he sign it into law.”

Year-round daylight saving time

Permanent daylight saving time would mean keeping the clocks shifted forward one hour all year, eliminating the need to “spring forward” every March and “fall back” each November. The adjustment would extend more daylight into the evening, creating later sunrises and sunsets compared to standard time. 

“Establishing permanent daylight saving time would provide families with more usable daylight hours in the evening, giving people additional opportunities to spend time outdoors,” Republican Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis of Florida said during House debates Tuesday.

Many other representatives from Florida voiced their support for the bill Tuesday, saying later daylight hours would help boost the Sunshine State’s economy.  

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, agreed. 

In his remarks supporting the permanent daylight saving time, he also pointed to the harmful effects that switching the clocks twice a year can have on people’s health, as well as young children and pets’ quality of sleep.

Under the bill, states that do not observe daylight saving time before enactment would have the choice to remain on permanent standard time.

The provision would only affect two states, Hawaii and Arizona outside Navajo Nation, that already do not observe daylight saving time. Those states instead go by standard time, the hours the rest of the country follows from November to March, year-round. Other states wishing to opt out would have to enact a law one day before the federal bill becomes law.

Is standard time better?

Many health experts say standard time is better for humans because it increases the amount of daylight received in the morning, which is beneficial for body rhythms and helps improve sleep, The Hill reports.

Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, the only representative to speak in opposition to the bill during Tuesday’s floor debate, cited the benefits tied to standard time as one of her main reasons for going against the bill.

Though she too expressed frustration with the practice of changing clocks, she said dozens of medical associations show “if we stop the clock, permanent standard time is a healthier choice.” 

Dean also pointed to events that occurred the last time the U.S. briefly attempted to follow permanent daylight saving time in 1974. Some children lost their lives while walking to school in the dark, she said. 

“We aren’t voting on bills right now that would reduce the sky-high costs of food, fuel, healthcare or addressing the president’s war in Iran,” Dean said. “Instead we’re considering a bill that was deadly and dangerous in the past.” 

Daylight saving time’s past and future

Daylight saving time was first introduced in the early 20th century as an energy-conserving wartime measure, according to the academic journal Science. The U.S. has observed short periods of permanent daylight saving over the years, but the federal government has each time reverted to the practice of changing clocks.   

Lawmakers have also made attempts in recent years to enact permanent daylight saving time. In 2022, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved an earlier version of the bill, sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, and Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, only for the measure to stall in the House.

In a statement Tuesday, Murray called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to bring the House-passed bill for a vote in the Senate.

“My state, where it is often dark earlier than 4pm in the winter, has made it abundantly clear we want permanent Daylight Saving Time,” Murray wrote. “Americans from Seattle to Miami believe it’s way past time to lock the clock—I am calling on Leader Thune to bring this bill to a vote as soon as possible.”

If the Senate considers the bill this year, some opposition is likely to come up, including from Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s latest attack on the Smithsonian Institution represents an attempt to replace a shared American history with his own ideology, academics said as the Smithsonian defended its longstanding position as a nonpartisan actor.

A July 4 White House report accused the Smithsonian Institution and its National Museum of American History of promoting what it called a “radical, activist ideology” that downplayed U.S. achievements and promoted injustices related to race, gender and sexual identity.

But the report does not advocate for a neutral presentation of history, said Asim Ali, an American studies professor at the University of Maryland. Instead, the report’s authors are promoting their own vision of American history that downplays the country’s shortcomings to promote national pride, Ali said.

“The report frames what the National Museum of American History is doing as being ideologically and politically motivated,” Ali said. “But what it is actually saying in the first several pages is that it should be following a different ideology — one that is focused on what the authors of the report want to see.”

A spokesperson for the Smithsonian, a constellation of museums largely funded by the federal government, said the museum had a nearly two-century track record of nonpartisan service.

“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to States Newsroom. 

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, was more forceful in an internal email, according to a July 8 Washington Post article.

His email to employees said the White House report was “not a fair characterization of the work and totality of the National Museum of American History,” according to the Post.

‘Ideological capture’

The scathing 162-page report published by the White House Domestic Policy Council represents the latest push in a broader Trump effort to restructure some of the nation’s hallmark cultural and artistic institutions to hew more closely to the nationalistic vision that animates his MAGA movement, American University history professor Pamela Nadell said.  

It alleges the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has “explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated,” instead painting the country in a “problematic” light with “thinly veiled anti-Americanism.”

“This ideological capture has moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country,” the report said. 

Struggle to define history

Ali said he thinks the report’s introduction reads like “propaganda” due to its focus on ideology and disregard of the contributions of academics and researchers. 

Nadell also said the Trump administration is trying to get the Smithsonian — along with other cultural and educational institutions across the country — to conform to a certain “patriotic, heroic narrative.” 

She said she disagreed with the report’s attempts to deemphasize flawed parts of America’s story that are “essential to tell the complete history of the nation.”

The White House report also has its defenders, who agree with Trump that U.S. educational and cultural institutions ought to show the country’s history in a more positive light.

U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican who introduced a bill to codify a 2025 Trump executive order on the presentation of U.S. history, said in a social media post Tuesday that the White House was right to criticize the National Museum of American History. 

“The Museum of *American* History has no major exhibits dedicated to *America’s* founding,” the senator wrote. “Instead, it focuses on ‘social justice’ and ‘decolonization.’ This is wrong.” 

‘Woke’ institutions

The Domestic Policy Council, which is led by former Trump campaign speechwriter Vince Haley, accused museum leadership of advancing personal ideological agendas that contradict the institution’s founding patriotic principles.

The language used in the White House report echoes arguments the second Trump administration has made against academic and cultural institutions the president has deemed too culturally liberal or “woke.” 

Last year, less than one month after he assumed office, Trump named himself chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and took control of much of the center’s programming. 

He has also ordered colleges and universities to make changes to their diversity, equity and inclusion-related programs and threatened to withhold federal funding if they did not comply. 

And the July 4 report is not the first move the Trump administration has made against the Smithsonian Institution. The president issued a March 2025 executive order to “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness” and get rid of any “improper ideology.”

Then, beginning in August of last year, he launched an investigation into exhibitions and materials from eight of the Smithsonian’s 21 museums.

Constructive criticism OK

Andrew Taylor, an associate professor of arts management at American University, said the Smithsonian should not be immune from criticism.

“I think anybody and everybody in the country has the right to hold the Smithsonian accountable and to make their best case for the things they’re concerned about,” he said. “That’s fine, that’s harmless and it’s useful.”

But, he added, the White House’s critique seemed more designed to disrupt an honest public accounting of the nation’s story.

“It feels like the report is intended to change what we consider to be our shared history, without actually going through the process of knowing what that should be,” he said. 

WASHINGTON — The prime time for ticks is here in the United States, and after an especially active start to the season, experts are urging the public to stay alert and take preventive measures. 

Monthly emergency department visits for tick bites in April spiked to their highest level since 2017 and continued to remain high throughout May and June, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tick bite tracker.

Though it’s hard to predict what the rest of the season will look like, given that tick activity depends on a number of different factors, there has definitely been a recent geographic expansion of the area ticks inhabit, said Pilar Fernandez, a disease ecologist and assistant professor at Washington State University. 

The tiny blood-suckers, which tend to thrive in warmer climates, are spreading to places that used to be too cold for their existence, she said during a July 1 SciLine media briefing, as temperatures rise in the United States and around the world.

With more ticks comes a greater risk of individuals developing tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease, Alpha-gal syndrome and anaplasmosis. That’s why researchers are encouraging people to know their facts and learn how to protect themselves from bites as they venture outdoors. 

What’s going on this year?

According to the CDC, an estimated 31 million people are bitten by ticks each year, with most encounters taking place between April and October. But in 2026, ER visits began rising as early as March. 

Weekly ER trips for tick bites are also up in every U.S. region except for South Central as of June 28, the online tick tracker shows. 

Global warming is certainly one reason behind this recent surge in tick activity, though Fernandez said the whole picture is much more complicated.

Because ticks can live for up to two to three years, it’s difficult to understand the delayed seasonal effects of increased temperatures or precipitation on their population, she said.

Other factors including local environmental conditions and how much time people spend outside can have an impact on annual tick encounters, she added. 

Every spring and summer, she said, people ask her if it’s going to be a “big year” for ticks, which is “a really hard question to answer, because it’s not equal across all locations.” 

Most tick cases are recorded in the Northeast and Midwest, but different species of ticks are found in every region of the country. And as the population expands into areas where people are unaware of how to protect themselves and unaccustomed to checking for bites, the threat of contracting a tick-borne infection grows, Fernandez said. 

Tick-borne diseases

Ticks carry pathogens that they then pass on to humans by biting into their skin and feeding on their blood. An untreated tick bite can lead to the development of one of nearly 20 different human diseases in the U.S., the most common of which is Lyme disease — about 476,000 patients are treated annually, according to the CDC. 

Another tick-borne infection that has been on the rise is Alpha-gal syndrome, which causes people to experience a serious allergic reaction after they eat red meat or other animal products that contain the sugar molecule alpha-gal. It is most commonly associated with the lone star species of tick distributed throughout the Northeastern, Southern and Midwestern United States. 

Initial symptoms of tick-borne illnesses are unspecific and often the same as those that come with regular sickness, such as a fever, headache, muscle aches and joint pain, according to Alvaro Toledo, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology at Rutgers who also spoke at the July 1 media briefing. 

“Physicians need to be vigilant and aware if they receive a patient with symptoms that are compatible with a tick-borne disease,” he said.

What if you find a tick?

If one discovers a tick on the skin, Toledo said the proper response is to first quickly remove the tick with tweezers by pinching and pulling it up in a vertical motion, then disinfecting the area and monitoring for signs of sickness. 

People should not, on the other hand, deal with a tick by burning it off or applying petroleum jelly to the bite, said University of Wisconsin-Madison Assistant Professor Adela Oliva Chavez, a tick researcher, at the briefing. 

“Those are myths,” she warned. 

Ticks typically do not transmit infection until after they have been attached to the skin for 24 hours, which is why the CDC recommends people aim to remove the pests as soon as possible within the first day.   

However, experts say the most effective way to prevent tickborne disease in humans is by limiting exposure to ticks in the first place.  

Toledo said people should use chemical sprays such as permethrin on their clothing and classic bug repellents on their skin to keep ticks away. It’s also a good idea to wear long, light-colored clothing when spending time in forests and other highly vegetated areas where ticks are abundant. 

But, he added as a reminder to the public, there is “no zero-risk zone anywhere when you go out … even in your backyard, risk is not zero.” 

Individuals can further reduce their chance of acquiring a tick bite by checking their pets just as often themselves, according to Oliva Chavez. Dogs and cats can easily bring ticks into the house from outside, and if they aren’t yet attached to the animal’s flesh, they can make their way onto humans, she said.