By Kara Voght — There were two kinds of women waiting in line outside of the Anthem theater for the 40th anniversary celebration of Emily’s List, the organization dedicated to electing Democratic women who support abortion rights: Those who’d arrived straight from work, and those who’d had time to change. The former showed up in variations of the liberal working woman’s uniform: black pants, oversize blazers and comfortable closed-toe shoes, all in neutral shades. The latter arrived in the vestments of girlboss-meets-girlhood: Barbie-pink power suits and flouncy floral dresses.
Inside the industrial-chic concert venue was a sea of low-maintenance haircuts and minimal makeup, mingling among the concert pylons and metalwork. They sipped signature cocktails with names like “The 1985” (a strawberry-flavored Cosmopolitan, named in honor of the year of Emily’s List’s founding) and “Seat at the Table” (a sage-infused French 75, named in honor of the few decades of Western civilization in which women have had a political say). ADJ in a powder-pink jumpsuit spun Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.”
In this house, they believe that the future of politics is female. Still.
“Elect Women. Take Back Power,” read a message across the backdrop of the stage. Women, Emily’s List founder Ellen Malcolm told the crowd, could send “a lethal shock wave through MAGA world” by exercising their political power.
“Yes, we are pulled backwards,” said Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), who made history in November by becoming the first out transgender person elected to Congress. “But the pressure and tension of being pulled backwards ultimately propel us to destinations where we’ve not yet been.”
For now, they were here: a 40th birthday party. If Emily were a person – rather than an acronym for “Early Money Is Like Yeast” (because, as Malcolm says, “it makes the dough rise”) – she would probably be dealing with the creeping anxieties of middle age. Are my best years behind me? How am I supposed to relate to the kids? Is my world– my influence – expanding, or shrinking?
But whether those questions were bugging the proverbial Emily, the 1,000 or so partygoers (including, for the record, some men) did not seem preoccupied by them.
“Certainly, the loss was painful and deeply felt, and it continues to be true as we see the impacts of this administration,” said Emily’s List president Jessica Mackler, of Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump. But there was much to celebrate: Three female Democratic senators held their seats in states that Trump won. And there’s the historical ledger. Emily’s List was founded whenMalcolm, an heir to the IBM fortune, gathered 25 well-connected Democratic women in the basement of her D.C. home. The idea was to build a network of donors to back Democratic women running for office. The group claimed its first victory in 1986, when Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland became the first Democratic woman elected to the U.S. Senate. Since then, it has helped elect 221 members of Congress, 20 governors, and 1,600 state and local officials.
In 2018, midway through Trump’s first term, voters elected102 Democratic womento the House of Representatives – “and Emily’s List was smack in the middle of that,” said Stephanie Schriock, who served as the organization’s president from 2010 to 2021.Several of those 2018 success storiesare now looking to make their next move, running for governorships or Senate seats.
The recent past appeared to be on their side. Is the present?
Beyond the confines of the gala, there is a loud conversation about how to make men feel more welcome in the Democratic Party.The anxiety comes from Trump’s 2024 gains among men, especially young men and some men of color. Many post-election analyses concluded that Trump had tapped into men’s economic and cultural insecurities, aided by the “manosphere,” a collection of immensely popular, dude-centric influencers, commentators and entertainers – who, while not always explicitly political, provided friendly platforms for Trump and his surrogates to bro down. Some Democratic politicians, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Biden transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, have lately ventured into these wilds to test how liberals fare in them.
Could Harris have won if only she’d appeared on Joe Rogan? It’s not that simple, according to Kelly Dittmar, the director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics. In the Trump era, masculinity is the standard by which Republican candidates’ fitness for office is measured. That’s even true for GOP women running for office, who simultaneously preserve traditional femininity while glorifying macho toughness. Recall Nikki Haley, from the presidential debate stage, saying of her high heels: “They’re not for a fashion statement – they’re for ammunition.” In that instance, “she’s using her gender to prove her masculinity,” Dittmar says.
Chasing the platforms and discourse of the manosphere isn’t the right solution, says Ross Morales Rocketto, the founder of “White Dudes for Harris” who’s now working on a project for men. “People are so obsessed with taking a page out of the GOP playbook on this, but they’re experts in grievance politics,” Morales Rocketto said.
“When Democrats say ‘Let’s do media work, let’s do a sports podcast,’ I got to be totally honest – that’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” he added. “That isn’t how the right did what it did. They spent years building up a media ecosystem that had nothing to do with politics, but culturally appealed to their voters – and then used that ecosystem to activate folks and move them when the time was right.”
One distinguishing characteristic of the manosphere media universe is its wildness – rambling, hours-long conversations that seem to barely follow an outline, let alone a script. That is not the media environment that many politicians are trained for. “How many Democratic leaders do we have, on the national scale, who can go into these spaces and sound like normal people?” says Amanda Litman, a co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits and trains first-time Democratic candidates. “The list is pretty small.”
At the Emily’s List gala, whatever freewheeling conversations might have been happening were unreportable. Press handlers hovered over this reporter’s shoulder, interjecting warm yet stern reminders that conversations with attendees were strictly off-the-record. Interviews had to be requested and conducted with supervision. Speeches were delivered from the stage on a tight schedule. Questions about Democrats’ struggles with male voters were answered – mostly dismissed – with talking points.
“We’re rightly having conversations about what Democrats need to win,” says Mackler, “but we’ve spent 40 years proving that we can take situations that feel very difficult and turn them into wins.”
“Women who run for office don’t win office without men voting for them, right?” said former senator Laphonza Butler (D-California), who served as Emily’s List president from 2021 to 2023. “It is a part of the ethos of Emily’s List and the candidates that this organization supports – it is authenticity and being clear about your ‘why’ and what it is that you want to accomplish when winning office. That helps them to bridge that gap.”
In Emily’s world, they’re rightly having conversations about bridging gaps while supporting an ethos of authenticity that has worked for Democratic women. Video messages from Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton were met with hearty applause (Clinton’s received the larger ovation). Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi predicted that “because of Emily’s List, we will have a woman president of the United States.” The applause for that line felt subdued.
“The Democratic Party needs solutions to try to slow down the off-ramping of young men toward anger,” said Schriock. But that doesn’t mean Democratic women need to do something dramatically different to win. In 2018, the group’s former president said, “Women stepped up to become candidates like never before. Women voters stepped up to engage in a midterms like never. And women activists took it upon themselves to organize in their communities.” When the midterms come around again next year, Schriock says, “I think the results are going to be the same.”
Onstage at the Anthem, Malcolm, the group’s founder, reassured the faithful that the future is bright for Emily and her List. “We’ll orchestrate so many victories that will convince Republicans they have lost the will of the people and that Donald Trump is a flawed leader, and they will suffer grave consequences unless they too act to stop him,” Malcolm said.
The audience roared. The past, after all, was on their side.
“Hell,” she said, “we’ve been electing women for decades.”
