Women elected to Iowa House hits lowest number since 2014

Tenth in a series interpreting the results of Iowa’s 2024 state and federal elections.

Across the country, voters elected a record number of women to serve in state legislatures in 2024. About a third of all U.S. state lawmakers will be women next year, and in seven state legislative chambers, women will comprise 50 percent or more of members.

In contrast, the 2024 elections moved the Iowa legislature further away from gender parity. The decline was steeper in the state House, where Iowans elected fewer women than at any point since 2014. A retirement produced a smaller drop in female representation in the upper chamber.

IOWA HOUSE: GROWTH IN 2010s, DECLINE IN 2020s

During the last two years Democrats controlled the Iowa House (2009 and 2010), women held 26 of the 100 seats (nineteen Democrats, seven Republicans). The number of women representatives dropped to 24 (sixteen Democrats and eight Republicans) following the 2010 elections.

Women’s representation steadily increased over the last decade, creeping up to 25 of the 100 House members following the 2012 elections (nineteen Democrats and six Republicans), to 27 after 2014 (21 Democrats and six Republicans), and 28 after 2016 (nineteen Democrats and nine Republicans).

The high-water mark for women serving in the Iowa House was 34 representatives (24 Democrats and ten Republicans) following the 2018 elections. One Democrat retired in 2019 and was succeeded by a man, bringing the number down to 33 heading into the 2020 election cycle.

This decade, voters have repeatedly elected fewer women to the chamber. The number of women serving in the House dropped to 31 (21 Democrats, ten Republicans) after the last presidential election cycle, and went down to 29 (sixteen Democrats, thirteen Republicans) following the 2022 midterms.

Three women now serving in the state House did not seek re-election in 2024. No women competed for their seats, so men won the elections to replace Democratic State Representative Sharon Steckman and Republicans Anne Osmundson and Luana Stoltenberg.

Democratic State Representatives Molly Buck (House district 41) and Sue Cahill (House district 52) both lost their re-election bids to men in November.

The following 24 women (eleven Republicans and thirteen Democrats) were re-elected to the state House:

Jane Bloomingdale (R, House district 60)
Brooke Boden (R, House district 21)
Cindy Golding (R, House district 83)
Helena Hayes (R, House district 88)
Heather Hora (R, House district 92)
Megan Jones (R, House district 6)
Barb Kniff McCulla (R, House district 37)
Shannon Latham (R, House district 55)
Shannon Lundgren (R, House district 65)
Ann Meyer (R, House district 8)
Devon Wood (R, House district 17)
Timi Brown-Powers (D, House district 61)
Tracy Ehlert (D, House district 79)
Ruth Ann Gaines (D, House district 33)
Lindsay James (D, House district 71)
Jennifer Konfrst (D, House district 32)
Monica Kurth (D, House district 98)
Elinor Levin (D, House district 89)
Mary Madison (D, House district 31)
Heather Matson (D, House district 42)
Amy Nielsen (D, House district 85)
Megan Srinivas (D, House district 30)
Beth Wessel-Kroeschell (D, House district 49)
Elizabeth Wilson (D, House district 73)

Kurth had the smallest margin of victory, winning by 45 votes (0.34 percent) following a recount.

Of the sixteen House members elected for the first time in 2024, only three are women:

Samantha Fett (R, House district 22)
Jennifer Smith (R, House district 72)
Aime Wichtendahl (D, House district 80)

All told, 27 women will serve in the House next year: fourteen Democrats and thirteen Republicans. It’s remarkable that Democratic women will continue to outnumber GOP women in the chamber, since the GOP majority will expand to 67-33—the largest majority seen in the Iowa House since 1970.

The top of the House Republican leadership team (speaker, majority leader, speaker pro-tem, and whip) will remain all-male. The GOP caucus has not yet announced assistant majority leaders for the 2025 session. For the past two years, all assistant leaders were men. Women will chair seven Iowa House committees next year, and men will chair 22 committees.

Jennifer Konfrst became the first woman to lead Iowa House Democrats in 2021 and was recently re-elected to that role. House Democrats will choose the rest of their leaders later this month. The caucus made history in December 2022 by electing an all-woman leadership team.

IOWA SENATE: SMALL DROP AFTER RECORD SET IN 2022

The number of women serving in the Iowa Senate reached an all-time high of fifteen following the 2022 elections.

Nine members of that record-setting cohort were not up for re-election this year: Democrats Janice Weiner (Senate district 45), Liz Bennett (Senate district 39), Molly Donahue (Senate district 37), and Cindy Winckler (Senate district 49), and Republicans Chris Cournoyer (Senate district 35), Carrie Koelker (Senate district 33), Sandy Salmon (Senate district 29), Annette Sweeney (Senate district 27), and Cherielynn Westrich (Senate district 13).

Voters re-elected five women to the chamber in November:

Claire Celsi (D, Senate district 16)
Janet Petersen (D, Senate district 18)
Sarah Trone Garriott (D, Senate district 14)
Dawn Driscoll (R, Senate district 46)
Amy Sinclair (R, Senate district 12)

Trone Garriott had the smallest margin of victory, winning by 29 votes (0.07 percent) following a recount.

Long-serving Democratic State Senator Pam Jochum did not seek re-election and will be succeeded by Democrat Tom Townsend in Senate district 36.

The three sitting state senators who lost their re-election bids were all men, as were their challengers: Republican Brad Zaun lost to Matt Blake in Senate district 22, and Democrats Nate Boulton and Eric Giddens lost to Mike Pike and Dave Sires in Senate districts 20 and 38, respectively.

The upshot is that fourteen women (seven Democrats and seven Republicans) will be among Iowa’s 50 state senators next year. Although that’s a step backward, it’s a higher level of women’s representation than at any point prior to 2023.

Sinclair will remain the Senate president (the second-ranking position in the majority caucus), and Koelker will be one of four assistant majority leaders. Women will chair five Iowa Senate committees next year, and men will lead 21.

Weiner recently became the third woman chosen to lead the Iowa Senate Democratic caucus. Winckler, Donahue, and Celsi will be among the four assistant minority leaders.

Top photo of Iowa State capitol is by f11photo, available via Shutterstock.