Over the last half decade, there has been a rise in the number of women running for election in Mexico with the number skyrocketing in 2019 due to revisions of loopholes in Mexico’s gender quota law. The most recent election in Mexico during 2024 was the largest election in its history and saw the most women running for office. However, while the number of women entering political office is increasing, so is the level of criminal violence, especially against political leaders. The 2024 election was one of the most violent elections in recent history. Furthermore, as women increasingly enter politics and the violence during elections rises, it is critical to understand if there is a relationship between criminal violence and the rise of women in politics. In this paper, I argue that the rise of criminal violence during elections is shrinking the pool of candidates for political parties to select from increasing the likelihood of a woman being selected for office, especially if these parties are the non-incumbent party and will use this as a way around the gender quota. Therefore, in areas where criminal violence is high, we will see an increased percentage of women running for political office. The paper uses an original dataset on local candidates in Mexico from 2018 to 2024 to test whether in municipalities with high levels of criminal violence against political actors in the previous election will have a higher percent of women running for office in the next election cycle.