Is there a gender gap in Latin American attitudes toward women politicians? While scholars of Latin America have examined the role of institutions and quotas in women's electoral success, less attention has been paid to voters' attitudes about women leaders. In this paper, we report on two survey experiments and an observational study in Brazil looking at the effect of candidate gender on vote choice. We asked subjects to chose a candidate from a hypothetical ballot while randomly varying candidates' gender. We find a strong and consistent 5-7 percentage point pro-female bias. Our experiments illustrate a novel approach to testing candidate choice models.

Although racial injustice and inequality are widely acknowledged in Brazil, recent experimental research concludes that citizens there do not rely on racial cues when voting. In this article, we test for the impact of candidate race on vote choice. We fi nd evidence of identity-based voting in Brazil that interacts with ballot size. When facing a short ballot with only a few candidates, most subjects chose candidates without regard to race or color. But when presented with a large ballot with many candidates, white and brown subjects show a signifi cant preference for same-race candidates. Selfidentifi ed black subjects, however, demonstrated a strong and consistent preference for black candidates regardless of choice set size. These results are particularly important given Brazil's electoral rules that provide voters with overwhelming numbers of candidates from which to choose.

A diverse and growing literature ties legislative professionalization and power to career paths. In particular, higher rates of reelection and longer legislative careers should produce more professional, competent, and high‐quality legislatures. Legislators have more incentives to strengthen their own institution when they intend to remain there for a long career. Using data from the most recent constitutional convention in Brazil, we show that legislators with greater prospects for long careers were actually less likely to support strengthening the legislative branch. We explain this as part of a local equilibrium where career legislators’ short‐term need for pork trumped their long‐term interest in a stronger institution.

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