COLLINS: Women making waves this election cycle, left to right

This election season is going to be all about women.

OK, not entirely. Men will be involved on many significant levels, like running the network of oligarchs who take advantage of our weakened campaign finance laws to manipulate the American democratic process in pursuit of their own selfish ends.

All right, I’ll settle down. Men occupy most of the seats in Congress, and that’s not going to change in November. However, women are starring in a lot of exciting election stories.

Consider the U.S. Senate. The Republicans need to win six seats to take control. About a dozen races seem to be up in the air, and most of them feature female candidates.

“Sometimes I feel like the weight of the Senate is resting on my shoulders,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, which raises money for pro-choice Democratic women. Emily’s List candidates like the hard-pressed Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, are doing well in fundraising this year. Although the oligarchs can come thumping down at any moment.

The political world early this month was watching North Carolina, where Republicans were duking it out to see who would get to run against Hagan. Excitement was so high that nearly 16 percent of eligible voters came to the polls.

Thom Tillis, the speaker of the state House, won. Tillis is coming off an extremely productive legislative season, which included major abortion restrictions passed in a bill on motorcycle safety. Also, in a canny show of foresight, he championed a new law that will make it more difficult for young and poor people to vote.

The fights aren’t all going to be liberal woman versus conservative man. In Michigan, the Republican candidate, Terri Lynn Land, has an ad in which she tells the viewers that Democrats like her opponent, Rep. Gary Peters, “want you to believe I’m waging war on women. Really. Think about that for a moment.” And then she just sits there drinking coffee.

It’s pretty effective, except for the part where Peters did not actually accuse her of waging a war on women.

She opposes Obamacare, backed the government shutdown in 2013 and opposes abortion rights. She also opposes the current congressional bill to raise the minimum wage, which disproportionately affects women. She came out against the equal pay bill that would have made it easier for women to figure out whether they were getting the same wages as their male peers.

Keep piling this stuff up and you eventually have to ask: What’s the point?

The Republican establishment would love to have more female candidates—particularly the kind like Land who campaign well and do not have plans to rock the boat. But they’ve failed to deliver. Only four of the 20 women in the Senate are Republicans, and only 19 of the 79 women in the House.

“The Republican women can’t make it through their primaries,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics. “I think one reason is that they tend to be more moderate than men or at least may be perceived to be more moderate.”

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign has been boasting about his support for the Violence Against Women Act, which was indeed the case about 20 years ago. McConnell was for the Violence Against Women Act when the original version of “Dallas” was still on the air. Since then, he has voted against it three times.

But nobody’s perfect.•

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Collins is a New York Times columnist. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.