Congressional Republicans: Mostly Men, Mostly White

(Note: this was compiled in Oct 2017, but while some seats have changed, it’s still pretty accurate.)

Michelle Obama recently stated that one side of the congressional isle is, “all men, all white.”

Almost immediately, images of diverse Republican congresspeople flooded onto conservative websites and into social media. One picture I saw even had three minorities and only one white guy in it! Armchair pundits called Obama names while conservative media pointed out that there are, in fact, women and minority Republicans serving in congress.

This is true. There are, in fact, women and minority Republicans serving in congress.

In fact, if you were to take a random photo of 10 members of the Republican House and Senate, there is a really good chance you would get a picture of at least one (1) woman or a minority (that person might even be both).

This is because only 87% of Republican members of congress are white males.

By contrast, only 45% of Democratic members of congress are white males.

If you take that same photo of 10 random members of the Democratic House and Senate, you run a strong chance of capturing at least five (5) women and/or minorities.

I wanted to see how this diversity divide looks, but surprisingly could not find any charts online. So I created a few handy visuals of my own using data collected by Stephen Wolf at Daily Kos.

For the House of Representatives:

And, for the Senate:

In short, while it may not be literally true that the Republican side of the isle is “all men, all white,” there is a stark difference in the diversity between the two parties.