Women in Municipal Office 2022

New data from the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, shows slight gains for women’s representation in municipal office since we first reported this data in 2021, though women still hold less than a third of municipal offices nationwide. Women now hold 31.5% of municipal offices, including mayoral offices and city councils or similar bodies, which is a single percentage point increase from our 2021 data.

Our 2022 Women in Municipal Office fact sheet has an interactive map showing women’s share of municipal offices in all 50 states, as well as a sortable table that shows this percentage and state rankings for women’s representation in municipal offices. In addition, newly added to this table is a rank change column showing how states have gained or lost rank since this data was released in 2021. A second table on this fact sheet compares women’s representation in municipal office to their representation in state legislatures.

This data includes information about mayoral offices and members and officers of the municipal legislative branch of incorporated cities and towns with populations over 10,000, per the U.S. Census. It should be noted that there is a great deal of variance between states in how many cities and towns are included in this data. Hawaii, for example, remains in the top spot for women’s representation, but that ranking is based on just a single municipality that is both incorporated and has a population greater than 10,000: Honolulu. California, by contrast, has 394 such municipalities; with women holding 38.7% of municipal offices in the state, California holds the eighth position in our rankings.

The top five states for women’s representation in municipal office this year are Hawaii (50%), Alaska (48%), Colorado (45.3%), Oregon (41.4%), and Arizona (41.2%). Hawaii, Alaska, and Colorado’s rankings remain unchanged, while Oregon moved up one position and Arizona moved into the top five. The bottom five states are Mississippi (19.7%), Nebraska (20%), Wyoming (21.4%), Indiana (21.7%), and North Dakota (22%); all of these states were also in the bottom five states in 2021, with Mississippi replacing Nebraska as the lowest-ranked state.

In terms of major rank changes, Delaware moved from the 38th to the 25th position, a 13-position gain; women now hold 31.3% of municipal offices in Delaware compared with 26.9% in 2021. New Hampshire, meanwhile, dropped 12 spots, going from the 25th spot to the 37th; women held 29.9% of municipal office in New Hampshire in 2021 and hold 28.2% now.

Find out how your state ranks, and how it has risen or fallen in our rankings, at our 2022 Women in Municipal Office fact sheet.