Erin Loos Cutraro is the founder and CEO of She Should Run, the national nonpartisan nonprofit that’s encouraged nearly 30,000 women to consider running for office since 2011. Her path started in a sixth-grade classroom teaching history, then wound through the Missouri Secretary of State’s office and a stint as political director of the Women’s Campaign Fund before she built She Should Run into its own standalone 501(c)(3). In this episode, Erin talks with Rachel and Felicia about what’s changed for women considering a run: the recruitment gap is still real (men are still more likely to get tapped on the shoulder), a new layer of online abuse and harassment has raised the stakes in ways it wasn’t a decade ago, and the persistent myth that women raise less campaign money than men, which simply isn’t true.
The conversation digs into She Should Run’s Local Leader Lab, a 12-week cohort program built on a “go small, go deep” philosophy, betting that investing deeply in a smaller group of underutilized women leaders creates more ripple effect than trying to reach everyone at once. Erin explains how they’re scaling it by training past participants as facilitators, and why the community that builds around each cohort often matters more than the curriculum itself. They also get into the gap between campaigning and governing, using Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner as a jumping-off point for how candidates get “cast”.
There’s some good news by the end. Stay for it, because we all need to hear it!
Sign up for the Local Leader Lab now!
Chapter List
0:08 — Welcome, Erin Loos Cutraro’s Path to She Should Run & Her Civic Origin Story
6:13 — What’s Changed for Women Running: Recruitment Gaps, Online Abuse & the Fundraising Myth
12:46 — Inside the Local Leader Lab: Go Small, Go Deep & Building Real Community
21:20 — No Tool Replaces Human Connection (Choosing Quality Over Quantity)
24:00 — Scaling by Training Facilitators: How 10x the Applications Changed the Model
26:33 — Graham Platner and Getting “Cast”
42:05 — The State of Women Running: Record Numbers This Cycle & the Local-to-Higher-Office Pipeline
53:26 — Erin’s Advice: No Linear Path, Start With Your Why & How to Join the Fall Cohort
