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by Laurie Kretchmar, The 2012 Project

Today the US Congress is only 17 percent women, which puts us 79th in the world (our ranking just dropped again). With this election we could reach “20 percent in 2012.” That’s the name of a new campaign from The 2012 Project, MissRepresentation.org’s nonpartisan partner to elect women this year (#ElectWomen2012). The 2012 Project is part of Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics.

“We need to accelerate the pace of progress” said Mary Hughes, founder and director of The 2012 Project. “It’s time. Women are ready.”

A snapshot so far:

• A record 161 women are nominees running for US House, topping the old record of 142. The number could rise after 3 more upcoming congressional primaries.
• A record 297 women filed to run, up from the previous 262.
• 4 states with the most nominees: California with 24, Texas with 15 and Florida and New York with 12 each
• 5 small states have women running for all their US House seats (Hawaii with 2 seats, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota each with 1).
• 2 more states might join them, depending on their primary results (NH with 2 seats and Delaware with 1)
• 4 states have never elected a woman to Congress (Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi and Vermont)
• 5 states have zero women on the ballot for their 20 US House seats (Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska and Vermont)

Let’s envision the day when there are talented women candidates running for ALL 435 seats and all 100 in the Senate and across the land.

In the meantime, learn about your state, make sure you’ve registered to vote, find a candidate to support, consider volunteering! Find links to websites below (if you don’t recognize the shape of a state, hover over the image to see the name):

See a full alphabetized list of states with links here.

Laurie Kretchmar is the Media & Social Media Director at The 2012 Project. She tweets @LKhere and @The2012Project. You can follow The 2012 Project on Facebook as well.