Part of the trouble is demographic. There are just more Democratic than Republican women among registered voters, and President Trump, who is less popular among women than among men, has not helped.

Republicans also lag strategically in several areas: in recruiting female candidates, training them, funding them and helping them through primaries…

Beyond the lack of resources, many Republican women have chosen to stand back. Some of their reasons, like a tendency to question their own qualifications, are common to women regardless of party.

But others are bound up in conservative principles, like a respect for hierarchy, some of the Republicans at the Yale training said. They said they saw, among many conservative women, a sense of obligation to “wait their turn” and an aversion to emphasizing gender as an asset, as Democratic women have.