The Role of Gender Stereotypes in U.S. Senate Campaigns

Abstract

In this article, we rely on data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) to examine the impact of gender for U.S. senators running for reelection. We propose a theoretical explanation for why an incumbent's gender may influence how citizens evaluate senators, and we present empirical evidence showing that people develop distinct impressions of men and women senators during campaigns. In the 2006 election cycle, women senators were viewed more positively than their male counterparts. Some of the advantages women senators enjoyed were consistent with established gender stereotypes. In particular, women senators were viewed as more honest and more caring than male senators. Moreover, women senators were viewed as more competent at dealing with health-care issues. However, we did not find evidence for gender stereotypes that traditionally produce more positive views of male senators. For example, we did not find that male senators were viewed as stronger leaders or more experienced than women senators. People did not view male senators as better able to deal with economic issues.T he number of women holding prestigious elective office in the United States has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. For example, 25 women contested seats for the U.S. Senate in the 1980s. However, only two of the 25 women (8%) were successful: Senator Barbara Mikulski, who ran against another woman in an open seat, and Senator Nancy Kassebaum, who won reelection. In the following decade, the number of women contesting U.S. Senate seats almost doubled to 47 women candidates.

The effect of political candidates’ occupational background on voters’ perceptions of and support for candidates

“…Brians, 2005;Dolan, 2004Dolan, , 2008Fridkin and Kenney, 2009;Terklidsen, 1993a, 1993b;King and Matland, 2006;Lawless, 2004;Sanbonmatsu, 2002;Sanbonmatsu and Dolan, 2009). Most of this research suggests that voters' gender stereotypes relate to their perceptions of male and female political candidates' competences.…”

“…Most of this research suggests that voters' gender stereotypes relate to their perceptions of male and female political candidates' competences. For example, Fridkin and Kenney (2009) show that female politicians are viewed as better able to deal with health-care issues. Issues such as military, defense, and terrorism, by contrast, have been seen as weak areas for female candidates (e.g.…”

Owning Immigration: Messenger Ethnicity, Issue Ownership, and Support for Latino Candidates

“…We further incorporate tests of the claims that pro-immigration and anti-immigration messages could be linked to higher evaluations of candidates. While we have some reason to suspect one type of message will lead to positive evaluations, the literature supports the association of certain messages with candidate evaluations (i.e., Druckman 2004;Fridkin and Kenney 2009), which is why we now turn our focus towards a test of these hypothetical claims. In addition, we include a more thorough examination of whether Anglo respondents differ substantially from the full sample of respondents (Abosch, Barreto, and Woods 2007;Barreto 2007a;2007b;Barreto, Segura, and Woods 2004;Dawson 1994;Tate 1993).…”

Gender themes in state legislative candidates’ websites

“…Female candidates may also be better able to capture women's issues because of voters' stereotypes. Female candidates tend to be stereotyped as competent on issues related to women, healthcare, and education and male candidates as competent on issues related to agriculture, crime and defense (Alexander & Andersen, 1993;Fridkin & Kenney, 2009;Huddy &Terklidsen, 1994;Leeper, 1991;Sanbonmatsu & Dolan, 2009;Sapiro, 1981-82). Recent work by Dittmar (2015) involving interviews with consultants and candidates from statewide races in 2008 and 2010 too demonstrates that campaigns are aware that elections are gendered and take that into consideration when designing strategies.…”