Did the Scientists Running for Office Beat the Trends?

Just before the election, we checked in on the eight-year-old movement to bring people with STEM backgrounds into political office. The long-term trend certainly seemed positive, but there were dozens or hundreds of candidates actually sweating out this year’s races to try and bring scientific expertise closer to the halls of power — how did they do?

“Now we are trying to make every year the year of the scientist,” Shaughnessy Naughton, founder and president of 314 Action, the PAC at the heart of this effort, told me a few weeks ago. She highlighted a few important races then, like the House race in Oregon’s fifth district — electrical engineer Janelle Bynum emerged victorious there, flipping a Republican seat, and will become the first Black member of Congress from Oregon.

“Now, more than ever, her voice and expertise are much needed in Congress, where she’ll be able to stand up to the GOP’s extreme anti-science, anti-abortion agenda,” Naughton said in a press release.

Another race I mentioned earlier also swung to the STEM candidate. In New York’s 22nd district, former science teacher John Mannion flipped a Republican seat, ousting Rep. Brandon Williams by nearly 10 points. A former NASA chief of staff, George Whitesides, flipped California’s 27th House seat as well.

Some of 314 Action’s candidates faced serious headwinds. In Iowa’s tight first district, the race still has not been officially called, though engineer and law professor Christina Bohannon currently trails incumbent Republican Marionnette Miller-Meeks by less than 1,000 votes out of more than 413,000 cast. That race is tight enough that a recount will now take place.

Of course, these flips weren’t enough to help Democrats hold the House, and the science-friendly Members will now have to navigate a Republican troika across the government for at least the next two years. “[P]oliticians have currently shown us that they are unashamed to meddle in science,” Naughton told me in October. There are more scientists in Congress than there used to be; we’ll see if they can fight that meddling, or are just forced to witness it.