Context Not Candidate Sex: A Case Study of Female Vote Choice for Mayor

In November 2017, New Orleans elected the first woman, and first Black woman, mayor in the city’s history. Voters were unable to rely on gender, race, or partisanship to differentiate between the candidates in the race. How, then, do voters make decisions absent traditional heuristics? Using an analysis of campaign materials and two-wave panel survey, we show that the candidates sent ideological signals with endorsements and issue foci and that voters responded by placing the candidates ideologically. Those voters who could not differentiate between the candidates’ ideologies were less likely to turn out to vote and took longer to decide in the elections. Using a new measure of relative ideological distance adopted for multicandidate races, we show that the distance between each voter and the nearest candidates correlated with vote choice. Our results add to our knowledge of voting behavior and the use of ideology in local elections.

Section: Voters' Ideological Projectionsmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Low-information Electionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are You Picking Up What I Am Laying Down? Ideology in Low-Information Elections

Holman

Lay

2020

“…She finds that context, including demographic factors and institutions, impacts the likelihood that a Black candidate even appears on the ballot. While many studies have often focused on how demographics, institutions, and other contextual factors affect the likelihood that women and minority candidates will win elections (e.g., Abott and Magazinnik 2020; Browning, Marshall and Tabb 1984; Bullock 1984; Cargile and Pringle 2019; Citrin, Green and Sears 1990; Crowder-Meyer et al 2018; Trounstine and Valdini 2008), these considerations likely also influence the supply of candidates—i.e., who opts to run for office.…”

Section: Why Are There So Many Business Executive Mayors?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1. While there are too many studies to cite here, some examples include Abott and Magazinnik (2020), Bauer (2018), Browning, Marshall and Tabb (1984), Bullock (1984), Cargile and Pringle (2019), Citrin, Green and Sears (1990), Crowder-Meyer et al (2018); Crowder-Meyer, Gadarian and Trounstine (2019), Ferreira and Gyourko (2014), Hajnal (2010), Holman (2014); Holman and Lay (2020), Hopkins and McCabe (2012), Karnig and Welch (1980), Marschall, Ruhil and Shah (2010), McDermott (1998), Pelissero, Holian and Tomaka (2000), Pomper (1966), Sances and You (2017), Schaffner, Rhodes and La Raja (2020), Shah (2014), and Trounstine and Valdini (2008). …”

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confidence: 99%

Representation in American Cities: Who Runs for Mayor and Who Wins?

Kirkland

2021

Business leaders emerge as key players in canonical accounts of urban politics, but data limitations have hampered efforts to quantify their role in city politics. Drawing on an original dataset that includes gender, race, occupational, and political experience for over 3,500 mayoral candidates from 259 cities over fifty years, I document who runs for office and who serves as mayor, with a focus on candidates who are business owners and executives. Overall, the data indicate that mayors tend to be White and male with prior political experience and white-collar careers. Business owners and executives account for nearly one-third of the candidates in the sample, but I find no indication that they win elections at higher rates than other candidates overall. However, my results do suggest that business owners and executives have better electoral prospects in more conservative cities, especially those that hold nonpartisan elections.

“…Voters may thus hold conflicting gender stereotypes about the level of government and type of office. Although some municipally-focused studies have looked at stereotypes in mayoral elections (Bird et al 2016; Cargile and Pringle 2020), most look at council races (Bauer 2020c; Brown, Heighberger and Shocket 1993; Crowder-Meyer, Gadarian and Trounstine 2020; Higgle et al 1997; Oliver and Conroy 2018). Our focus on mayoral office-seeking is therefore significant.…”

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confidence: 99%

‘Whiny, Fake, and I Don't Like Her Hair’: Gendered Assessments of Mayoral Candidates

Tolley

Lawlor

Fortier-Chouinard

2022

Municipal mayoral elections present a compelling puzzle: what happens when gendered stereotypes about level of government conflict with those about type of office? Although local politics is viewed as communal and more feminine, the mayoral office is a prominent, prestigious position of political leadership that voters may perceive as more masculine. We intervene by analyzing open-ended comments about 32 mayoral candidates from a survey of 14,438 municipal electors in eight Canadian cities. We argue gendered trait and issue stereotypes are embedded in voters’ assessments of mayoral candidates. We find no evidence that female candidates benefit from their perceived competence in local policy issues, and they experience backlash when they display the traits typically associated with strong leaders. We conclude that, even at the level of government frequently thought of as more open to women, female mayoral candidates are disadvantaged by an enduring association between masculinity and political leadership.