Run, Women, Run!: Term Limits and Women's Paths to Power in the States argues that term limits in the state legislatures are a powerful tool for increasing women's representation. By forcing incumbents, mostly men, out of office, term limits create more political opportunities for women. Drawing on data from all 50 U.S. states from 1990-2022, this long-term, comparative analysis of women's emergence, success rates, and state-level representation shows how term limits, in fact, help decrease barriers to entry and expand the number of women in politics. It also places women candidates in the broader debates around ambition, party politics, political culture, recruitment, and representation, showing that individual-level factors matter, but the institutional design of the legislature and state-level political environments matter, too. Run, Women, Run! combines a variety of rigorous, mixed-methods empirical analyses-from difference-in-differences to case studies-alongside accessible language, metaphors, and real-world examples, giving it broad appeal. This book is relevant to scholars, students, journalists, policymakers, and citizens concerned about descriptive representation, and provides actionable insights, offering a roadmap for how lessons learned from term limits can help increase women's representation in a broader context.

Samantha Pettey is Professor of Political Science in the Department of History and Political Science at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA). Her research interests are a blend of gender politics and US institutions.