Elections

Sustaining gains by minorities in government becomes complicated as their ranks grow and the circumstances that allowed their unique candidacies to flourish evolve. Questions about how to ensure a more inclusive environment over the long term remain at issue. For example, a record 95 women were elected to serve in the 111th Congress — among 435 House and 100 Senate seats — but that number fell to 92 for the 112th Congress.

Despite progress in many areas of American professional life, women currently hold less than 17% of national-level elected offices, a lower rate than most of the developed world. The 2010 elections brought about the first-ever decrease in the female-to-male ratio in Congress since the first female representative was in 1916.

The 2010 midterm elections shifted the balance of power in the U.S. Congress. Before, Democrats held significant majorities in both chambers; after, their margin of control shrank in the Senate and disappeared entirely in the House. Some commentators said that the elections showed that the United States had become a “conservative majority” country, an assertion supported by polls that indicated that 42% of Americans described themselves as “conservative,” up from 37% two years before.

The past 25 years in the United States have been marked by growing income inequality, increasing political divisions and rising immigration. A 2006 Princeton University study, “Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches,” looks at possible connections between these trends.

From the Scholars Strategy Network, written by Katrina Kimport, University of California, San Francisco.

For more than a half-century, social scientists have been exploring and debating the idea of “racial threat,” in which white citizens adopt more racist attitudes, and support more racially biased policies, as their perceived dominance becomes “threatened” by the growth of African-American or other minority populations in or near white communities.