Women on Governor-elect Murphy’s Transition Team: 

A Mixed Review

Governor-elect Phil Murphy’s transition team is now largely in place, and the picture for women is decidedly mixed, according to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

The transition is led by a ten-member team, of whom three are women, including two women of color. That team includes titles such as: director of transition policy committees; senior advisers for strategy and policy, strategic communications, and outreach; chiefs of staff to the lieutenant governor-elect and first lady; director and deputy director of personnel; directors of communications and political affairs.

Among the 81 transition committee co-chairs, 51.9 percent are women and 27.2 percent of are women of color. Women make up 37.1 percent of the 687 transition committee members, with women of color only 14.9 percent of committee membership. Of all the women appointed to the committees, 41.4 percent are women of color.

The full release, including detailed tables, is here.

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is nationally recognized as the leading source of scholarly research and current data about American women’s political participation. Its mission is to promote greater knowledge and understanding about women’s participation in politics and government and to enhance women’s influence and leadership in public life. CAWP’s education and outreach programs translate research findings into action, addressing women’s under-representation in political leadership with effective, imaginative programs serving a variety of audiences. As the world has watched Americans considering female candidates for the nation’s highest offices, CAWP’s over four decades of analyzing and interpreting women’s participation in American politics have provided a foundation and context for the discussion.