The 25 Most Influential Washington Women Under 35

Thou­sands of young wo­men flock to Wash­ing­ton each year, armed with de­grees in fields as di­verse as polit­ic­al sci­ence, com­mu­nic­a­tions, pub­lic policy, and eco­nom­ics. Mostly, they come for jobs, fueled by en­ergy and even ideal­ism. Some­times it takes a while for their ef­forts to have an im­pact. But not al­ways.

This year, Na­tion­al Journ­al’s an­nu­al Wo­men of Wash­ing­ton list fo­cuses on in­di­vidu­als un­der 35 who quickly made their mark in Con­gress, think tanks, lobby shops, fed­er­al agen­cies, and oth­er ven­ues. Lists like these are highly un­scientif­ic, so this year, in ad­di­tion to so­li­cit­ing sug­ges­tions from our staff, we asked mem­bers and read­ers—through e-mail, Face­book and Twit­ter—to nom­in­ate young wo­men who had already made a dif­fer­ence. We were flooded with re­sponses.

Then: the hard part. Trim­ming the list to the 25 most in­flu­en­tial was easi­er than get­ting an im­mig­ra­tion bill through Con­gress—but just barely. The res­ult re­flects a range of D.C. pro­fes­sions. It in­cludes both of the fe­male House mem­bers un­der 35, three House staffers, three Sen­ate aides, two re­port­ers, three ex­ec­ut­ive-branch em­ploy­ees, two White House staffers, three polit­ic­al strategists, three lob­by­ists, and four think-tank ana­lysts.