Story by Lilly Behbehani
Photos by Ally Rabon
In late September, Austin Cook got a call. She was told she got the job working on the Biden-Harris re-election campaign. She was thrilled, knowing it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
But, there was a slight problem. Cook, a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill, needed to move to Wilmington, Delaware, in two weeks. She had to figure out how she could still get her degree in May while working at the Biden-Harris campaign headquarters 380 miles away at the same time.
She was determined to make it work.
She dropped her minor, shifted her media and journalism major into her minor, and headed to Delaware.
“As a young woman in politics, if I can do it, anybody can,” Cook said. “I deserve to be here, nothing should be holding me back from being in this room.”
In North Carolina, women are slightly more likely to vote when compared to the average of the United States. Even though women in the state have seen a decrease in representation in statewide elected offices and make one-third of political donations in the state, women are mobilizing and engaging in meaningful ways other than monetary.
For DemocracyNC, a nonpartisan organization, 66% of its active volunteers, organizers and mobilizers are women and are consistent donors of small amounts, said Shannon Heck, director of development for the group.
“Historically, the larger donations to political campaigns have been made by men, but historically, there have been economic disparities between men and women,” Heck said.
When it comes to philanthropy, women often opt to donate other essential things to campaigns, like their time, said Brooke Medina, vice president of communications for the John Locke Foundation, a public policy think tank based in Raleigh.
“If women make just one-third of donations now, it’s probably more sizable than what it was 10 years ago,” Medina said. “I would estimate that maybe even in 10 more years, the gap is going to close even more.”
As many look for ways to increase women’s spending, those in the political field point to the same solution: invest in women.
Though they make up a majority of the population in North Carolina, women hold only a third of elected statewide office seats. For instance, none of the eight declared candidates for governor is a woman.
On both sides of the aisle, female donors disproportionately support female candidates, according to the Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics. When female candidates run for office, they receive strong monetary support.
National organizations such as Emily’s List work to empower women by investing in strong pro-choice female candidates.
“I think women are more engaged in politics now, particularly since Donald Trump got elected,” said Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of communications and content at Emily’s List. “We saw an explosion of the number of women who were interested in running for office, and we saw a huge explosion in the number of women who wanted to help women run for office.”
Reynolds attributes this growth in numbers to what many called a “Hillary Bump,” as it was thought that by seeing a woman running for the highest elected position motivated more women to get involved in political campaigns.
“In the entire 2015/2016 cycle, we had fewer than 1,000 women reach out to us to say they wanted to run for office, and that was a record,” she said. “We crossed that number in the first month after Donald Trump got elected. It’s hard to be the first, but every time someone breaks a barrier like that, it shows other women, other people like them, that they, too, can run and win and be a leader.”
Reynolds said the lack of political donations from women might be attributed to women not seeing candidates they align themselves with, in addition to the pay gap between men and women.
Nationally, once women run, they are strong fundraisers. Women made up 51% of the top Republican fundraisers and 52% of the top Democratic fundraisers in statehouse races between 2019 and 2022, according to the Rutgers report.
When campaigns at the top level prioritize the importance of their female constituency, it trickles down to all aspects of the campaign at almost every level, which can help persuade voters to support one candidate over another, said Catie Diaz, donor retention and cultivation manager with the Biden-Harris campaign.
“We should be turning out for our own interests, because we don’t always have a seat at the table,” she said. “But now those seats are becoming more available, and we’re able to push more women candidates who have our interests all the way up to the highest positions.”
When issues impact certain aspects of a voters’ lives, it energizes them to be active in politics, said Jennifer Rubin, president of the League of Women Voters of North Carolina. She believes that for many women, the Dobbs decision has triggered a feeling of urgency that motivated them to get involved with political organizations during the most recent election cycle.
“Women have been one of the most dynamic change groups in American life as it relates to politics,” said Marc Hetherington, professor of political science at UNC. “This particular political moment in time seems to have galvanized women in a way that was already happening, but accelerated it.”
Hetherington said when he was growing up, the key articles at the time urged women to follow their husbands’ lead when it came to politics. Now, he said women have eclipsed men in participation in politics, especially in a post-Dobbs world.
Gerrymandered political maps and new voter ID laws in the state may pose as barriers for disenfranchised citizens to vote or get involved in politics. As the number of registered women voters dropped in North Carolina, the League of Women Voters’s goal in the upcoming year is to educate both male and female voters about new legislation that could affect eligibility to vote and inform women on issues that would motivate them to get them to the polls, Rubin said.
Those in the political sphere share optimism about women’s growing participation in politics, both in positions of power and support on the ground, as they look toward the future.
“Change is a very slow process, but to be a part of the change is inspirational when you know you’re making a difference,” said Beth Dehghan, founder of WomenNC, a nonprofit that engages college students in research, public policy formation and advocacy to advance gender equity.
Rubin agreed, and said young women, especially those of the university age, are critical in supporting democracy.
Cook knew that she wanted to work in politics after graduation, but she had never envisioned herself working on a political campaign and even refuted the idea a few years prior when interviewed for a podcast.
However, when the opportunity arose to be a part of a historical re-election campaign, she jumped in headfirst.
As an executive assistant to the deputy campaign manager, she has experienced watching debates at the Democratic National Committee, overseeing social media campaigns like Joe Biden’s viral birthday cake picture, serving as the liaison between team members, and learning from the top minds in the political fields as they prepare for the upcoming election.
She plans to stay in Wilmington until the November 2024 Presidential Election. Come spring, she’ll take her last political science class and graduate from UNC on time. Surrounded by a team made up of many powerful female colleagues and bosses to look up to, she has no regrets about her decision.
“I’m regularly writing memos to the president of the United States to talk about the digital efforts of the campaign. It’s just crazy,” Cook said. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but I love it.”
