Women have long enjoyed a key advantage in California's strong Democratic political ecosystem: Sheer numbers.
Polling taken before last November's election underscored the obvious: 56% of Democrats were women, clocking men by 12 percentage points. Evidence of their power can be seen in the forms of Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who 23 years ago became the nation's first all-woman Senate team largely on a surge of support from women voters.
But in an alarming turn for the state's dominant political party, women are vanishing from its legislative ranks, traditionally the training ground for federal or statewide office.