ELECTION RESULTS IN BRIEF

Coverage of the 2018 elections emphasized the historic numbers of women running for and winning office, including a first-ever women-majority legislature in Nevada. For all of the attention given to the number of female candidates, however, they still have not achieved electoral parity. Figure 1 and table 1 illustrate gender-based differences in candidates across the 45 states that held legislative elections in 2018. The candidate counts reflect the total number of individuals across all major parties who filed paperwork to run for a seat (upper or lower chamber) in the state legislature.Footnote Not surprisingly, the number of male candidates per legislative race was higher than the number of female candidates in every state. Indeed, on average, there were roughly twice as many male as female candidates across all seats. Thus, as encouraging as the 2018 election results were, candidate entry data tells a different story about the state of electoral opportunity for female candidates.

Figure 1

Number of Female and Male Candidates by State (Major Parties Only)

Table 1

Gender-Based Differences in 2018 State Legislative Candidate Pools (Major Parties Only)

PRIMARY TYPES AND CANDIDATE EMERGENCE AND SUCCESS

Much ink has been spilled examining the disparity of representation between men and women in elective office. When considering whether to take on the cost and commitment required to run for an office, a rational individual is more likely to engage when the political and situational conditions are favorable. For instance, potential candidates consider factors such as whether the position is currently held by an incumbent, how highly professionalized the legislature is, how desirable the legislative service is, state term-limit requirements, partisan composition of the electorate, and party of the candidate compared to the incumbent (Black Reference Black1972; Diamond Reference Diamond1977; Kazee Reference Kazee and Kazee1994; Moncrief, Squire, and Jewell Reference Moncrief, Squire and Jewell2001; Rohde Reference Rohde1979; Schlesinger Reference Schlesinger1966; Stone and Maisel Reference Stone and Maisel2003). Yet, women must consider additional factors, such as questions concerning their qualifications for office, sexism, and gender stereotypes held by both the electorate and the political parties, as well as constraining institutional features inherent to the political system they seek to enter (Norris Reference Norris1997).

Explanations for the gender gap in legislatures can be organized in three categories. The first category includes candidate-centric variables: a priori, women tend to be less interested in running for office, often as a result of, among other things: (1) lower levels of interest in campaigning tasks such as fundraising (Jenkins Reference Jenkins2007); (2) perceptions that they are not qualified (Fox and Lawless Reference Fox and Lawless2003; Kanthak and Woon Reference Kanthak and Woon2015); (3) familial obligations (Fox and Lawless Reference Fox and Lawless2003); and (4) because no one asks them to (Carroll and Sanbonmatsu Reference Carroll and Sanbonmatsu2013; Lawless and Fox Reference Lawless and Fox2010). The second category of factors concerns a lack of external support by an historically biased electorate (Ambrosius and Welch Reference Ambrosius and Welch1984) and disinterested political parties that may ignore female candidates whom they believe would struggle to raise campaign funds (Hamm et al. Reference Hamm, Olson, Moncrief, Thompson, Moncrief and Thompson1992; Sanbonmatsu Reference Sanbonmatsu2002).

Powerful as these explanations are, it also is important to consider the third category: institutional factors that shape candidate fields. For instance, potential female candidates are limited by the incumbency advantage that, by definition, favors individuals who have already earned a seat in elected office—usually men (Carroll Reference Carroll1994; Herrick Reference Herrick1996). Indeed, female candidates tend to have more success running in open-seat or multimember district (MMD) elections (Pritchard Reference Pritchard1992; Welch et al. Reference Welch, Ambrosius, Clark and Darcy1985). Similarly, restrictive ballot-access rules such as high filing fees (Mitchell Reference Mitchell2014) naturally favor those politicians—usually men—who have an easier time curating competitive campaigns. The scholarly consensus is that potential women candidates are constrained by a social and electoral environment that historically has not been supportive of their candidacies, as well as institutional forces that tend to benefit the existing political class dominated by men.

Different primary systems produce different electorates to which candidates must appeal. For instance, a closed primary restricts participation to voters formally affiliated with a particular party; other individuals are not permitted to vote. Conversely, an open primary permits all registered voters from all parties to participate in an election. Imagine a candidate trying to hone a message and campaign strategy in a closed-primary versus an open-primary state. A closed-primary state may compel that candidate to cater purely to partisan interests—and perhaps even pitch a more ideologically extreme policy agenda (Brady, Han, and Pope Reference Brady, Han and Pope2007). Conversely, if that same candidate were competing in an open primary, she may conclude that a less partisan, more moderate appeal is prudent for attracting casual partisans or voters who are entirely unaffiliated.

Such strategic considerations are relevant to all candidates; however, we argue that women face a unique situation punctuated by two questions for which male candidates usually do not need to be concerned. First, female candidates often are perceived as being the “ultimate political outsiders” (Sanbonmatsu Reference Sanbonmatsu2002) because they are not prototypical candidates in the historically male-dominated institutions for which they are running. As such, they must ask themselves: Can I appeal to outsiders as an outsider myself? In other words, can they appeal to a segment of the electorate that does not consist of party regulars and for which an outsider candidate may be an attractive option?

If the size and composition of the eligible electorate vary by primary type, women may perceive certain electoral contexts to be more conducive to an outsider winning.Footnote ² In a purely open primary, the process of convincing outsider-type individuals to vote is significantly easier because these voters face few barriers to participation. Conversely, a fully closed primary is much less friendly to outsider voters, limiting the potential for outsider candidates to benefit from that shared status with like-minded voters. Primaries that lie somewhere between these two types facilitate the participation of various outsider groups: that is, semi-open primaries allow partisans to cross over but do not allow undeclared voters to participate; semi-closed systems allow the opposite. In short, the potential for building a coalition of “outsiders” depends heavily on whether and which outsiders are eligible to participate in a primary election.

Although district composition matters considerably, there is a second relevant question that female candidates must ask: How many potential voters must I ask? In other words, how far does a woman need to extend herself to contact and communicate with potential voters whom she needs to vote for her? Women are less likely than men to ask for things due largely to early-age socialization and cultural penalties for doing so (Babcock and Laschever Reference Babcock and Laschever2003; Reference Babcock and Laschever2007). Each primary system varies in the level of “asking” required to campaign. For instance, in semi-open primaries, candidates must ask voters to engage in multiple actions: first, voters must be asked to participate in a particular party’s primary; and, second, they must be asked to vote for a particular primary candidate. In open elections, in which voters of all political affiliations are eligible to vote, there are considerably more people to ask than in a closed system that excludes large swaths of the electorate from voting at all. Because “asking” may not come as naturally to female candidates, primary systems that produce high numbers of eligible voters and/or require multiple rounds of asking may be less appealing to women considering a run for office.

If women (1) tend to be considered outsiders, and (2) are less likely to ask, then which primary types are most conducive to female candidate emergence? We posit that semi-closed primaries represent the most fertile electoral ground for them because these contests provide an ideal scenario for women vis-à-vis the two questions posed previously: that is, semi-closed systems simultaneously facilitate participation from unaffiliated (outsider) voters and also limit the amount of asking required by barring the participation of partisans from the other party.

In this way, female candidates may enjoy the best of both worlds: they may be able to capitalize on their outsider status by targeting independent voters while also not enduring heavy amounts of asking that would be required in more open-primary systems. Formally, we expect to observe the following:

Hypothesis 1: Ceteris paribus, women are more likely to run for office in semi-closed primary systems relative to other types of primary systems.

If some primary systems are better for women, then others—by definition—are better for men. We posit that the semi-open primary system may be the most attractive system for male candidates because it excludes undeclared outsider voters but invites partisans from other parties to participate—if the candidates are willing to ask. Both of these rules—excluding outsider voters and a high burden of asking—should be less appealing to women. Thus, we expect the following:

Hypothesis 2: Ceteris paribus, women are less likely to run for office in semi-open primary systems relative to other types of primary systems.

Whereas increasing the number of women running for office is a crucial first step, female candidates also must win to narrow the representation gap in state legislatures. To make it through the primary process, women must be willing to endure greater challenges relative to their male counterparts (Lawless and Pearson Reference Lawless and Pearson2008). As such, women who win their primary-election battles are more likely than men to have electoral experience and an aptitude for fundraising (Pearson and McGhee Reference Pearson and McGhee2004); in short, they have to be “better” to fare equally (Lawless and Pearson Reference Lawless and Pearson2008). Furthermore, when a candidate wins a party nomination, many institutionalized benefits automatically become available, making gender less of a factor in general elections than in primary elections. As such, the primary type in which they emerged as a candidate should differentially influence the degree of electoral success women experience in general elections. In other words, if the women who ran in 2018 ran only when entering a primary was relatively easy, the ultimate effect of their record number on women’s actual representation would be minimal.

Hypothesis 3: Ceteris paribus, female candidates will garner a higher vote share in semi-closed–primary systems than male candidates.

Hypothesis 4: Ceteris paribus, male candidates will garner a higher vote share in semi-open–primary systems than female candidates.

DATA AND METHODS

To examine the effects of primary type on the decision to run for office, we considered the emergence of all candidates who sought major party nominations via the primary process in 87 state legislative chambers holding elections in 2018.Footnote ³ Because we are interested in better understanding the larger number of candidates—particularly women—emerging in 2018, we counted the number of candidates who emerged under various institutional structures. Therefore, our key dependent variable was the number of women and men (i.e., # of female/male candidates) who ran under various primary systems. Our key independent variables of interest were the various types of primaries—semi-closed, semi-open, and closed (with purely open primaries as the omitted category). We also included nonpartisan and open-to-unaffiliated primaries for comparison. Finally, we included an array of ancillary control variables.Footnote ⁴