Voter Support for Women Candidates
- LAST MODIFIED: 22 April 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756223-0307
- LAST MODIFIED: 22 April 2020
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756223-0307
Introduction
Voter support for women candidates in American politics may best be summed up by the often-repeated phrase, “when women run, women win.” This statement indicates that when compared to male candidates running in a similar capacity, such as candidates for open seats in which no incumbent is present, female candidates are equally likely to win elected office. Voters, therefore, seem equally likely at face value to support female candidates. However, the literature on voter support for women candidates suggests that this voter support may be more conditional in nature. A central research thread on voters and women candidates is how voters perceive women candidates and, in turn, their electability. Research on gender stereotypes and candidates examines voter perceptions of the traits they typically associate with men and women, candidates, and officeholders and the circumstances under which these traits make gender and political candidacy more or less attractive. The literature on political party and voter support for women candidates explores how gender and party affect levels of voter support and is offered as one explanation for the party imbalance in women’s representation with female Democrats significantly outnumbering female Republicans as candidates and officeholders. Researchers have also examined how voters evaluate other components of women’s candidacies, including their party affiliation, race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. In addition to personal characteristics, scholars have explored how the type or level of office impacts voter support of women candidates with certain types of elected positions often considered more or less well suited for women candidates. More recently, a thread of research on voter support for women candidates has focused on women’s absence from the nation’s highest elected position—the US presidency. Scholars, and the candidate herself, have assessed voter support for or opposition to Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential bids in 2008 and 2016. This line of research includes public opinion polling that measures both the abstract idea of electing a woman president as well as electing a specific woman president, namely Clinton.
General Overview
Foundational works in the area of voter support for women candidates share the goal of evaluating women’s political candidacy more broadly, paying attention to voters, political parties, media coverage in campaigns. Earlier works, including Sapiro 1981 and Seltzer, et al. 1997, established that voters did not discriminate against female candidates and when compared to men running in similar races they won election just as frequently. Tolleson Rinehart 1992 finds that female candidates are particularly attractive to women who identify as gender conscious and who view the election of women as an important goal. Even so, Kahn 1996 demonstrates that female candidates often anticipate voters assessing them differently from male candidates and often work strategically to successfully navigate any negative assessments regarding their suitability to hold elected office. Jamieson 1997 posits that women in leadership positions are often held to unattainable competing standards—a “double bind”—that expect women to be kind but not a pushover, attractive but not too pretty, bold but not emasculating, standards that consistently have women falling far short of the perfect, composite image of an ideal leader. Dolan 2004 and Dolan 2014 use survey data to consistently demonstrate that other factors, including the party affiliation of voters and candidates, not gender stereotypes, exert a significant influence over evaluations of women candidates. The edited volumes Thomas and Wilcox 2014 and Carroll and Fox 2018 explore voter support for women candidates and related salient issues for contemporary state and federal elections.
Carroll, Susan J., and Richard L. Fox, eds. Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics. 4th ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
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Edited volume that explores women’s political candidacy in federal and state elections, and also the experiences of Latinas and African American candidates for elective office.
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Dolan, Kathleen. Voting for Women: How the Public Evaluates Women Candidates. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004.
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Survey research from the General Social Survey and the American National Election Study demonstrates how voters assess women candidates and the factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of voting for them.
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Dolan, Kathleen. When Does Gender Matter? Women Candidates & Gender Stereotypes in American Elections. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199968275.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Foundational work that uses survey data to demonstrate that political party affiliation, not gender stereotypes, influence voters’ support for women candidates.
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Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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Essential and comprehensive analysis of the many ways in which individuals hold competing and irreconcilable expectations of the qualities women leaders, including political candidates, are expected to possess.
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Kahn, Kim Fridkin. The Political Consequences of Being a Woman: How Stereotypes Influence the Conduct and Consequences of Political Campaigns. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
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Foundational work that examines women’s political candidacy for governor and US Senate and how women candidates anticipate and navigate the media’s and voter’s use of gender stereotypes in assessing women candidates’ suitability for statewide elected office.
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Sapiro, Virginia. “If U.S. Senator Baker Were a Woman: An Experimental Study of Candidate Image.” Political Psychology 2 (1981): 61–83.
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Experimental data indicates that changing a candidate’s gender does not in and of itself negatively impact voters’ willingness to support a woman candidate.
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Seltzer, Richard A., Jody Newman, and Melissa Vorhees Leighton. Sex as a Political Variable: Women as Candidates and Voters in U.S. Elections. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997.
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A foundational book that uses exit poll data to demonstrate that a candidate’s incumbency status, not sex, determines voters’ support for women candidates.
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Thomas, Sue, and Clyde Wilcox, eds. Women and Elective Office: Past, Present, and Future. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
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Edited volume that provides a comprehensive assessment of women’s political candidacy as Democrats and Republicans and as candidates for different elected offices.
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Tolleson Rinehart, Sue. Gender Consciousness and Politics. New York: Routledge, 1992.
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American National Election Survey data examined to evaluate how gender consciousness and voter self-identification with feminism impacts women’s political candidacy.
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Wolbrecht, Christina, Karen Beckwith, and Lisa Baldez, eds. Political Women and American Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Comprehensive edited volume that considers the salience of gender and political candidacy, including voter support.
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Gender Stereotypes and Voter Support for Women Candidates
Research on how voters employ gender stereotypes to assess women candidates primarily relies on experimental data or survey data, and as such often comes to different conclusions about how or even whether gender stereotypes affect women’s candidacies. Huddy and Terkildsen 1993b finds voters have an underlying expectation about the types of issues women candidates are better or less well suited to address. Ditonto, et al. 2014 shows that voters search for different types of information about men and women candidates. Barnes and Beaulieu 2014 considers how voters draw on gender stereotypes to disassociate women candidates with electoral fraud and corruption. Sanbonmatsu 2002 employs survey data to demonstrate how voters often have a baseline preference for men or women candidates. Fox and Oxley 2003 shows the impact of gender stereotypes on voters’ assessments of women candidates in certain types of elections, whereas Holman, et al. 2016 considers how and when voters use gender stereotypes to identify preferences in political leadership from men and women candidates during threats of terrorism. Dolan 2010 uses survey research to conclude that gender stereotypes do not negatively impact women candidates, a finding echoed by Brooks using experimental data that explicitly considers situations in which women and men candidates show emotions like sorrow or anger (Brooks 2013). Dolan and Lynch 2016 considers whether the type of elected office women seek leads voters to differentially employ gender stereotypes. Bauer 2018 employs experiments to tease out the role of partisanship in activating gender stereotypes of women candidates. Researchers do not agree on the circumstances under which voters employ or make any use of gender stereotypes in assessing women candidates.
Barnes, Tiffany D., and Emily Beaulieu. “Gender Stereotypes and Corruption: How Candidates Affect Perceptions of Election Fraud.” Politics & Gender 10 (2014): 365–391.
DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X14000221Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Demonstrates that voters will dismiss suspicions of electoral fraud associated with women candidates because gender stereotypes identify female officeholders as more honest and ethical.
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Bauer, Nichole M. “Untangling the Relationship Between Partisanship, Gender Stereotypes, and Support for Female Candidates.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 38 (2018): 335–362.
DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2016.1268875Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Draws on experimental data to determine if and when voters activate feminine stereotypes in evaluating female candidates.
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Brooks, Deborah Jordan. He Runs, She Runs: Why Gender Stereotypes Do Not Harm Women Candidates. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
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Voters do not employ gender stereotypes to penalize women candidates even when they engage in various behaviors such as crying or losing their temper.
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Ditonto, Tessa, Allison J. Hamilton, and David P. Redlawsk. “Gender Stereotypes, Information Search, and Voting Behavior in Political Campaigns.” Political Behavior 36 (2014): 335–358.
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Employs experimental data to demonstrate that voters seek out more information about competency and compassion of female candidates than for male candidates.
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Dolan, Kathleen. “The Impact of Gender Stereotyped Evaluations on Support for Women Candidates.” Political Behavior 32 (2010): 69–88.
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Survey research focuses on how or whether gender stereotypes influence voters’ assessments of women candidates.
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Dolan, Kathleen, and Timothy Lynch. “The Impact of Gender Stereotypes on Voting for Women Candidates by Level and Type of Office.” Politics & Gender 12 (2016): 573–595.
DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X16000246Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examination of women candidates for governor and Congress and whether voters employ gender stereotypes to differentially evaluate their political candidacies.
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Fox, Richard L., and Zoe M. Oxley. “Gender Stereotyping in State Executive Elections: Candidate Selection and Success.” Journal of Politics 65 (2003): 833–850.
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2508.00214Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Demonstrates how women may use gender stereotypes to select out of political candidacy, specifically state executive offices.
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Holman, Mirya R., Jennifer L. Merolla, and Elizabeth J. Zechmeister. “Terrorist Threat, Male Stereotypes, and Candidate Evaluations.” Political Research Quarterly 69 (2016): 134–147.
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Multi-method approach documents how the context of terrorism engages voters’ use of gender stereotypes such that voters most prefer leadership of Republican men and least prefer leadership of Democratic women during times of perceived security threats.
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Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen. “Gender Stereotypes and the Perception of Male and Female Candidates.” American Journal of Political Science 37 (1993b): 119–147.
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One of the first research articles to make a distinction between gender trait and gender belief stereotypes such that voters generally expect women candidates to be more competent in addressing compassion issues, such as education and health care.
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Koch, Jeffrey. “Do Citizens Apply Gender Stereotypes to Infer Candidates’ Ideological Orientations?” Journal of Politics 62 (2000): 414–429.
DOI: 10.111/0022-3816.00019Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of Pooled Senate Election Study data from 1988–1992 indicates that voters employ gender and party stereotypes to assess the ideological difference between women partisan candidates and voters such that Republican women candidates are advantaged women Democrats.
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Sanbonmatsu, Kira. “Gender Stereotypes and Vote Choice.” American Journal of Political Science 46 (2002): 20–34.
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Demonstrates that voters have a baseline gender preference for candidates that is comprised of gender stereotypes about candidates’ beliefs, perceived issue competency, preferred traits, as well as voters’ gender.
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Political Party and Voter Support for Women Candidates
This line of research looks at party affiliation—of voters and women candidates—to evaluate support for women seeking elected office. A central and unresolved question is whether Democratic and Republican women candidates are advantaged or disadvantaged by a party label. King and Matland 2003 uses experimental data to show that Republican women candidates appeal more favorably to Democratic and Independent voters but less favorably to Republican voters in primary elections that they must first win to compete in a general election. Lawless and Pearson 2008 examines party primaries to demonstrate that women candidates in both parties face greater electoral competition in primary elections. Winter 2010 shows how voters hold gendered beliefs about the Democratic and Republican parties that, in turn, affect women candidates in both parties. Hayes 2011 finds that voter stereotypes about political party, not gender, are more salient in voters’ assessments of women candidates. Dittmar 2015 demonstrates how partisan stereotypes about gender influence messaging and electoral strategies employed by candidates and the campaign professionals they employ. Thomsen 2015; Shames 2015; and Karpowitz, et al. 2017 consider the challenges facing Republican women candidates in gaining voter support in both primary and general elections. Schneider and Bos 2016 considers when voters privilege gender or party stereotypes in assessing women candidates. From a comparative perspective, Kittilson 2006 examines the experience of women candidates running for parliament under different party labels in western European democracies.
Dittmar, Kelly. Navigating Gendered Terrain: Stereotypes and Strategy in Political Campaigns. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015.
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Explores how gender and partisan stereotypes about gender influence the campaign and messaging strategies utilized by political consultants, candidates, and campaign consultants in elections.
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Hayes, Danny. “When Gender and Party Collide: Stereotyping in Candidate Trait Attribution.” Politics & Gender 7 (2011): 133–165.
DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X11000055Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examination of US Senate elections to demonstrate that party stereotypes exert a stronger influence over voters than gender stereotypes.
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Karpowitz, Christopher F., Quin Monson, and Jessica Robinson Preece. “How to Elect More Women: Gender and Candidate Success in a Field Experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 61 (2017): 927–943.
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Experimental data, including a sample of Republican voters, indicates that positive messages from the party’s leaders increases voter support for Republican women candidates.
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King, David, and Richard Matland. “Sex and the Grand Old Party: An Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Candidate Sex on Support for a Republican Candidate.” American Politics Research 31 (2003): 595–612.
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X03255286Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Draws on experimental data to demonstrate that Democratic and Independent voters assess Republican female candidates more favorably than Republican male candidates but that Republican male voters do not favorably assess female Republican candidates in party primaries.
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Kittilson, Miki Caul. Challenging Parties, Changing Parliaments: Women and Elected Office in Contemporary Western Europe. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2006.
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Cross-national case studies of women parliamentary candidates across Western European political systems demonstrate that parties vary widely in their willingness to include and support women candidates.
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Lawless, Jennifer, and Kathryn Pearson. “The Primary Reason for Women’s Underrepresentation? Reevaluating the Conventional Wisdom.” Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 67–82.
DOI: 10.1017/s002238160708005xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of nearly fifty years of congressional primaries demonstrates that even with generally equal “win rates,” women congressional candidates are more likely to face more primary competition than the men in their party, which suggests that women candidates face more competitive electoral environments.
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Schneider, Monica C., and Angela L. Bos. The Interplay of Party and Gender Stereotypes in Evaluating Political Candidates.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 37 (2016): 274–294.
DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2016.1188598Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Voters draw on gender and party preferences, sometimes together and other times separately, in evaluating female candidates for elected office.
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Shames, Shauna. Clearing the Primary Hurdles for Republican Women. Cambridge, MA: Hunt Alternatives, 2015.
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Multi-method analysis of opportunities and challenges facing female Republican congressional candidates.
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Thomsen, Danielle M. “Why So Few (Republican) Women? Explaining the Partisan Imbalance of Women in the U.S. Congress.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 40 (2015): 295–323.
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Attributes the dearth of Republican women candidates to a demand problem from voters that discourages moderate Republican women from running for Congress.
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Winter, Nicholas J. G. “Masculine Republicans and Feminine Democrats: Gender and Americans’ Explicit and Implicit Images of the Political Parties.” Political Behavior 32 (2010): 587–618.
DOI: 10.1007/s11109-010-9131-zSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uses American National Election Studies and experiments to demonstrate how voters have gendered the Democratic and Republican parties and the implication of those assumptions for men and women candidates who run under party labels.
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Electoral Context, Type of Office, and Voter Support for Women Candidates
Voter support for women candidates may depend on the electoral context in which women candidates run or the type of office they seek. Research from Burrell 1994, Paolino 1995, and Dolan 1998 each examined gains made by women candidates in the 1992 congressional elections of 1992, dubbed the “Year of the Woman,” to demonstrate how a favorable electoral context can boost the prospects for women’s political candidacy. An analysis of the type of elected office women candidates seek is a popular line of inquiry. Huddy and Terkildsen 1993a found that voters have a baseline preference for male candidates for national office. Sanbonmatsu 2006 demonstrates the importance of state party leaders in helping or hindering women’s political candidacy. Badas and Stauffer 2019 found that share gender between voters and candidates shape voter preferences for women candidates in non-partisan judicial elections. Crowder-Meyer, et al. 2015 shows that voters may prefer women candidates for local elected office, whereas Cox Han and Heldman 2007, Paul and Smith 2008, and Kahn and Kenney 2009, each demonstrate that voters may be less supportive of women candidates who run for president, and US Senate, respectively.
Badas, Alex, and Katelyn E. Stauffer. “Voting for Women in Nonpartisan and Partisan Elections.” Electoral Studies 57 (2019): 245–255.
DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2018.10.004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
For elections with a nonpartisan context, such as state judicial elections, shared gender between voter and candidate may determine voter preference.
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Burrell, Barbara. A Woman’s Place Is in the House: Campaigning for Congress in the Feminist Era. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.
DOI: 10.3998/mpub.14231Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Thorough examination of women’s political candidacy to the US House, including political party recruitment, voter support, and campaign finance.
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Cox Han, Lori, and Caroline Heldman. Rethinking Madam President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House? Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2007.
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Edited volume examines various considerations, such as media coverage and voter support, that may serve as barriers for women seeking election as US president.
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Crowder-Meyer, Melody, Shana Kushner Gadarian, and Jessica Trounstine. “Electoral Institutions, Gender Stereotypes, and Women’s Local Representation.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 32 (2015): 318–334.
DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2015.1031803Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Voters may be especially likely to support women candidates for local elected office, such as council positions and city clerkships.
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Dolan, Kathleen. “Voting for Women in the ‘Year of the Woman.’” American Journal of Political Science. 42 (1998): 272–293.
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Analysis of 1992 American National Election Study data demonstrates that women voters are more supportive of women House candidates than are men and rely on candidates’ issue positions in voting for Senate candidates.
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Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen. “The Consequences of Gender Stereotypes for Women Candidates at Different Levels and Types of Offices.” Political Research Quarterly 46 (1993a): 503–525.
DOI: 10.1177/106591299304600304Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Voters employ gender stereotypes that privilege typically male characteristics as more desirable for candidates running for national office.
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Kahn, Kim Fridkin, and Patrick Kenney. “The Role of Gender Stereotypes in U.S. Senate Campaigns.” Politics & Gender 5 (2009): 301–324.
DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X09990158Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data demonstrates that voters evaluate women senators as more honest and more competent in addressing health-care issues.
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Paolino, Phillip. “Group-Salient Issues and Group Representation: Support for Women Candidates in the 1992 Senate Elections.” American Journal of Political Science 39 (1995): 294–313.
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Data from 1992 National Election Study and 1992 Voter Research Survey exit polls demonstrate that women voters who prioritize women’s issues will prefer women candidates to represent their interests.
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Paul, David, and Jessi L. Smith. “Subtle Sexism? Examining Vote Preferences When Women Run Against Men for the Presidency.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 29 (2008): 451–476.
DOI: 10.1080/15544770802092576Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examination of likely voters in a presidential swing state suggests that when faced with actual candidates, voters may prefer male, not female, presidential candidates in both parties.
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Sanbonmatsu, Kira. Where Women Run: Gender and Party in the American States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.3998/mpub.168630Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Elite interviews with state political party leaders demonstrate how party leaders’ attitudes about women candidates affect their willingness to recruit them to run for elected office.
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Race, Ethnicity, and Voter Support for Women Candidates
If women candidates win election as frequently as men, some researchers have focused on how or whether certain characteristics, including race and ethnicity, affect women candidates. Earlier assessments of voter support for minority candidates were not favorable. In her retelling of her 1972 election for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, Representative Shirley Chisholm (Chisholm 1973) details how the Democratic Party members and also (white) feminists did not support her candidacy even as she was a Democrat and a woman. McDermott 1998 finds that voters employ gender and racial stereotypes to assess women candidates, a finding echoed by other scholars, including the authors of Gershon and Monforti 2019. Hardy-Fanta, et al. 2006 credits the increase in minority women’s representation to voter support for African American women candidates. Philpot and Walton 2007 attributes the success of African American women candidates to positive voter assessments of their experience. In contrast, Krupnikov, et al. 2016 suggests that social desirability may overstate voter support for minority female candidates. Bejarano 2014 finds that Latina state legislative candidates in states with large Latino populations are particularly advantaged. And, when assessing the electoral fortunes of minority women candidates, Brown and Gershon 2016 calls for an intersectional approach to appreciate their challenges and opportunities.
Bejarano, Christina E. The Latina Advantage: Gender, Race, and Political Success. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014.
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Supplements national public opinion data with case studies of Latina state legislative candidates in Texas and California to demonstrate that Latinas are advantaged over Latinos as candidates.
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Brown, Nadia E., and Sarah A. Gershon. Distinct Identities: Minority Women in U.S. Politics. New York: Routledge, 2016.
DOI: 10.4324/9781315661018Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Edited volume that employs an intersectional perspective to examine candidacy and officeholding for women of color.
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Chisholm, Shirley. The Good Fight. New York: Harper Collins, 1973.
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Autobiography of Chisholm’s bid for the 1972 Democratic Party nomination for president.
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Gershon, Sarah Allen, and Jessica Lavariega Monforti. “Intersecting Campaigns: Candidate Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Voter Evaluations.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 7 (2019).
DOI: 10.1080/21565503.2019.1584752Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Employs experiments on race- and gender-based trait evaluation from voters to evaluate women of color candidates.
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Hardy-Fanta, Carol, Pei-te Lien, Dianne Pinderhughes, and Christine Sierra. “Gender, Race, and Descriptive Representation in the United States: Findings from the Gender and Multicultural Leadership Project.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 3 (2006): 7–41.
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Analysis of multiple elections in several states demonstrates that African American women candidates are largely responsible for the increase in representation among racial and ethnic minority candidates seeking elected office.
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Krupnikov, Yanna, Spencer Piston, and Nichole M. Bauer. “Saving Face: Identifying Voter Responses to Black and Female Candidates.” Political Psychology 37 (2016): 253–272.
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Examines role of social desirability in voter evaluations of black and female candidates.
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McDermott, Monika. “Race and Gender Cues in Low Information Elections.” Political Research Quarterly 51 (1998): 895–918.
DOI: 10.1177/106591299805100403Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uses experimental data to demonstrate how voters draw on ideological and issue stereotypes for black and women candidates.
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Philpot, Tasha, and Hanes Walton Jr. “One of Our Own: Black Female Candidates and the Voters Who Support Them.” American Journal of Political Science 51 (2007): 49–62.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00236.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Multi-method approach to demonstrate how evidence of candidates’ political experience boosts voter support for black women candidates.
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Public Opinion Polls and Voter Support for Women Presidential Candidates
The widespread use of public opinion polls to gather information about voter preferences yields important findings about the willingness of voters to support women candidates, which might be best described as positive in general but less positive based on specific scenarios or women candidates. Gallup Poll (McCarthy 2019) has the longest time series about the public’s willingness to vote for a “qualified” woman presidential candidate, finding it necessary to make clear to respondents that men, not women, were naturally qualified to run for president. In addition, many of the aforementioned ideas about voters relying on gender and/or party stereotypes, such as Cohen and Livingston 2016 and Igielnik and Horowitz 2018, and the double bind of likability and competence—see Burrell 2008, Grove and Liszt 2013, and the survey Exploring Voters’ Perceptions of Democratic Presidential Candidates Through a Gender Lens—are affirmed in public opinion polls asking about women candidates. Taken as a whole, public opinion polls affirm generic voter support for women candidates in the abstract but lower levels of voter support when a specific woman candidate is specified.
Burrell, Barbara. “Likeable? Effective Commander in Chief? Polling on Candidate Traits in the ‘Year of the Presidential Woman.’” P.S.: Political Science and Politics 61 (2008): 747–752.
DOI: 10.1017/S1049096508080980Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of 2007 Gallup poll on Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama and traits positively associated with presidential leadership.
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Cohen, D’vera, and Gretchen Livingston. “Americans’ Views of Women as Political Leaders Differ by Gender.” Pew Research Center. 2016.
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Public opinion survey of American voters that demonstrates men and women hold different opinions on women’s political candidacy and requisite qualities for effective leadership.
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“Exploring Voters’ Perceptions of Democratic Presidential Candidates Through a Gender Lens.” PerryUndem Research/Communication. 2019.
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Public opinion survey of likely Democratic voters that asks about the electability and likeability of candidates seeking the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for president.
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Grove, Lisa, and Jeffrey Liszt. “Findings from Madam President Battleground Polling.” Washington, DC: Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, 2013.
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Public opinion survey of voters in battleground states regarding voter support for women candidates, including a woman running for president.
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Igielnik, Ruth, and Juliana Menasce Horowitz. “Most Americans Say More Women Running for Congress is a Good Thing, As Hope for a Female President Grows.” Pew Research Center. 2018.
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Public opinion survey ahead of the 2018 midterm congressional elections that indicate support for women congressional candidates and support for electing a woman president in future elections.
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McCarthy, Justin. “Less Than Half in U.S. Would Vote for a Socialist for President. Gallup Poll. 2019. “Voter Support for Woman Presidential Candidate.” Gallup Poll. 2019.
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Latest in time series public opinion survey that asks voters of their willingness to vote for a woman for president.
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Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Bids and Voter Support for Women Candidates
Given Hillary Clinton’s status as the first woman to win a major party presidential nomination and also the woman candidate to receive the most votes for president, both in 2016, there is a robust thread of research that evaluates voter support for Clinton. Lawrence and Rose 2010; McThomas and Tesler 2016; and Sharrow, et al. 2016 each evaluate Clinton’s first bid for the Democratic Party nomination in 2008, including media coverage support from party activists and also rank and file voters. Much of the analysis, however, was written following the 2016 presidential election contest after Clinton won her party’s nomination but lost the presidency—see Dittmar 2017; Cassese and Holman 2018; and Heldman, et al. 2018—with the most notable deconstruction of the 2016 campaign coming from the candidate herself, Clinton 2017. While researchers focus on different aspects of Clinton’s two unsuccessful attempts to run for president, a shared finding is the central role that gender dynamics play in the campaigns of women seeking elected office, particularly those running for the highest office in the nation.
Cassese, Erin, and Mirya R. Holman. “Playing the Woman Card: Ambivalent Sexism in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race.” Political Psychology 40 (2018): 55–74.
DOI: 10.1111/pops.12492Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Demonstrates how attitudes regarding hostile and benevolent sexism shaped voters’ support for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
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Clinton, Hillary Rodham. What Happened. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017.
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The candidate’s post-mortem on various aspects of the 2016 presidential primaries and general election, including voter support for her candidacy.
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Dittmar, Kelly. Finding Gender in Election 2016: Lessons from Presidential Gender Watch. Rutgers, NJ: Barbara Lee Family Foundation and Center for American Women and Politics, 2017.
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Collaborative project of Presidential Gender Watch 2016 that examined and analyzed gender dynamics in the 2016 congressional and presidential elections.
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Heldman, Caroline, Meredith Conroy, and Alissa Ackerman. Sex and Gender in the 2016 Presidential Election. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Press, 2018.
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Evaluates role of sexism and gender stereotypes, particularly those perpetuated in media coverage, in the 2016 presidential primaries and general elections.
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Lawrence, Regina G., and Melody Rose. Hillary Clinton’s Race for the White House: Gender Politics & the Media on the Campaign Trail. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010.
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Examination of voter support for Hillary Clinton in her first bid for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 2008.
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McThomas, Mary, and Michael Tesler. “The Growing Influence of Gender Attitudes on Public Support for Hillary Clinton, 2008–2012.” Politics & Gender 12 (2016): 28–49.
DOI: 10.1017/S1743923X15000562Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful bid for president in 2008 and subsequent service as US Secretary of State in navigating how voters assess female candidates on measures of strength and likability.
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Sharrow, Elizabeth A., Dara Strolovitch, Michael T. Heaney, Seth E. Masket, and Joanne M. Miller. “Gender Attitudes, Gendered Partisanship: Feminism and Support for Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton Among Party Activists.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 37 (2016): 394–416.
DOI: 10.1080/1554477X.2016.1223444Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uses Convention Delegate Study data to examine how Democratic and Republican party delegates assessed the candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin in the 2008 presidential elections.
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