Women across the country win with ranked choice voting in 2025 elections
Above: Members of the all-women St. Paul City Council in 2024. The Council will soon serve alongside the city’s first woman mayor, who was elected in 2025.
Last week, Salt Lake City elected its first majority-women City Council since at least 1980 using ranked choice voting (RCV). St. Paul elected its first woman mayor in an RCV contest. These cities join several others where women have made electoral history under RCV.
Salt Lake City, UT used RCV for the third time this year, and voters elected new Council Member Erika Carlsen in District 5. With Carlsen’s victory, the City Council will have four women and three men, and will also be majority-Latino.
St. Paul, MN elected Kaohly Her, who will become the city’s first woman and first Hmong American mayor. She will serve alongside an all-women City Council, all elected using RCV and mostly composed of members under 40 years old. Women also continue to hold a majority on the Minneapolis City Council, which is elected with RCV as well. According to researchers at Rutgers University, St. Paul is the largest U.S. city to be led by an all-women city government.
Additionally, New York City voters elected a majority-women City Council for the third election in a row. New Yorkers elected its first-ever majority-women Council after implementing RCV for primary elections in 2021, and women have held a majority of seats ever since.
Cities and states using RCV have frequently seen historic advances for women in government. In 2021, Las Cruces, NM elected its first majority-women City Council. Oakland, CA elected its first four women mayors in RCV elections – in a row. In Alaska, voters elected their first majority-women State House, and sent their first woman representative (and first Alaska Native) to the U.S. House.
RCV empowers a diverse range of candidates to run for office without being told to “wait their turn.” That’s because, in RCV elections, candidates can enter the race without fear of splitting the vote with someone who has a similar background or platform. In this way, RCV helps level the playing field and lower barriers to entry in politics – including for women, who remain underrepresented in government.
Research from RepresentWomen shows that greater women’s representation can translate into meaningful impacts on policy: For example, under New York City’s majority-women Council, the city advanced numerous women’s health initiatives that had long been overlooked due to stigma or a lack of life experience among policymakers.
As more cities adopt RCV, we may see further breakthroughs for women in government. For more about election reform and women’s representation, visit RepresentWomen.
