(CNN) -- GOP candidates Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle and Nikki Haley have captured the attention of the country this election season, but they're just a few of the record number of women pursuing office this year. More than 160 women congressional and gubernatorial candidates won their primaries and will be on the ballot next week, leading some observers to dub 2010 the "Year of the Woman." This year's record-breaking numbers are encouraging, but deceiving, said Siobhan "Sam" Bennett, president of the Women's Campaign Forum. "We're ranked 90th in the world in the number of women in elected office. We trail behind Cuba and Afghanistan," she said, citing data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union on the percentage of women in national parliaments.
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A record number of women run for office, but experts fear women will actually lose seats
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Democrats expected to lose seats, and female lawmakers are mostly Democrats
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Observer predicts women will hold steady in Senate and lose a few seats in House
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But veteran campaigner Sue Lynch says, "It is the year of the Republican woman"
In the @placeholder, there are 56 women who are Democrats and 17 who are Republicans.