Gender Dynamics in Congressional Elections

The Primary Reason for Women's Underrepresentation? Reevaluating the Conventional Wisdom

“…Scholars have shown that in contemporary congressional politics, after controlling for incumbency status and a variety of district demographics, women do not face widespread bias at the polls (Burrell 1998;Carroll 1994;Cook 1998;Duerst-Lahti 1998;Fox 2000;Seltzer, Newman and Leighton 1997;Smith and Fox 2001;Thomas and Wilcox 1998). Examining women's electoral success in the 1990s, Thomas and Wilcox (1998) conclude that "whereas women may once have lost their elections more often than their male counterparts, that is not the case today .…”

Is There a Gender Gap in Fiscal Political Preferences?

“…In fact, the types of differences which have been observed between men and women's opinions about fiscal and social issues are also mirrored in the observed differ-3 ences between men and women when they run for elected office. Some studies have shown that male candidates focus their campaign rhetoric on "men's issues" like taxes and the federal budget while female candidates focus on "women's issues" like education and health care (Kahn 1993;Fox 1997); other studies have found that gender differences in candidate strategies and rhetoric exist, but in oftentimes carefully nuanced forms (Bystrom 1995;. Relatedly, one of the common explanations for the gender gap in presidential election voting is that since 1980 the national Democratic party has developed an image as the party better suited to dealing with "women's issues", producing a gender gap in partisanship more than in voting behavior (Cook and Wilcox 1995).…”

I’m Not Voting for Her: Polling Discrepancies and Female Candidates

“…If we do find that polling for female candidates is less accurate than polling for male candidates a potential culprit may be an unexpected increase in female turnout when there is a female candidate on the ballot. A large swell in female turnout may be particularly problematic for pollsters as all else being equal, female voters prefer female candidates (Brians 2005;Dolan 2004;Fox 1997).…”