![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
Losing elections is a political reality for most candidates. While much fanfare was made of the historic number of women who won in 2018, three times as many women ran and lost. And although we know much about the reasons that motivate women to run in the first, far less is known about the decision-making processes of women who lose and run again. How do women who were once motivated rebound for another campaign and election? We address this question, working with a unique, exploratory data set of interviews with women who ran for Congress in 2018 and lost. Our analysis offers some important insights on how women who rebound think about their loss, and their decision-making processes. We find compelling evidence that women’s paths to office continue to differ from men’s, reminding us of the shortcomings of a one-size-fits-all model for candidate emergence or reemergence. We conclude with the foundation of a gendered theory of electoral persistence.
References
|
Bledsoe, Timothy, Herring, Mary. 1990. “Victims of Circumstances: Women in Pursuit of Political Office.” American Political Science Review 84 (1): 213–23. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Buser, Thomas . 2016. “The Impact of Losing in a Competition on the Willingness to Seek Further Challenges.” Management Science 62 (12): 3439–49. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | |
|
Carew, Jessica D. Johnson . 2016. “How Do You See Me? Stereotyping of Black Women and How It Affects Them in an Electoral Context.” In Distinct Identities, 111–31. Google Scholar | |
|
Carroll, Susan J. 1985. Women as Candidates in American Politics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Carroll, Susan J., Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2013. More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures, edited by Brown, Nadia, Gershon, Sarah Allen. New York: Oxford University Press; Taylor and Francis Publishing. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Carsey, Thomas M., Berry, William D., Forrest, Walter 2003. “‘If At First You Don’t Succeed...’: Repeat Challengers in State Legislative Elections.” Paper presented at the Third Annual State Politics and Policy Conference, Tucson, AZ. Google Scholar | |
|
Costantini, Edmond . 1990. “Political Women and Political Ambition: Closing the Gender Gap.” American Journal of Political Science 34 (3): 741–70. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Doherty, David, Dowling, Conor M., Miller, Michael G. 2019. “Do Local Party Chairs Think Women and Minority Candidates Can Win? Evidence from a Conjoint Experiment.” The Journal of Politics 814: 1282–97. Google Scholar | |
|
Fox, Richard L., Lawless, Jennifer L. 2004. “Entering the Arena? Gender and the Decision to Run for Office.” American Journal of Political Science 48 (2): 264–80. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Fox, Richard L., Lawless, Jennifer L. 2011. “Gendered Perceptions and Political Candidacies: A Central Barrier to Women’s Equality in Electoral Politics.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (1): 59–73. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Fulton, Sarah A., Maestas, Cherie D., Maisel, L. Sandy, Stone, Walter J. 2006. “The Sense of a Woman: Gender, Ambition, and the Decision to Run for Congress.” Political Research Quarterly 59 (2): 235–48. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Gill, David, Prowse, Victoria. 2014. “Gender Differences and Dynamics in Competition: The Role of Luck.” Quantitative Economics 5 (2): 351–76. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | |
|
Jacobson, Gary C., Kernell, Samuel. 1983. Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections. New Haven: Yale University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Palmer, Barbara, Simon, Dennis Michael. 2012. Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Google Scholar | |
|
Pearson, Kathryn, McGhee, Eric. 2013. “What It Takes to Win: Questioning ‘Gender Neutral’ Outcomes in U.S. House Elections.” Politics & Gender 9 (4): 439–62. Google Scholar | |
|
Schneider, Monica C., Holman, Mirya R., Diekman, Amanda B., McAndrew, Thomas. 2016. “Power, Conflict, and Community: How Gendered Views of Political Power Influence Women’s Political Ambition.” Political Psychology 37 (4): 515–31. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Silva, Andrea, Skulley, Carrie. 2019. “Always Running: Candidate Emergence among Women of Color over Time.” Political Research Quarterly 72:342–359. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Stripp, Semilla B. 2019. “The Purple Wave: Gender and Electoral Outcomes in the 2018 Midterms.” Macalester College Political Science Honors Projects. https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/poli_honors/79/. Google Scholar | |
|
Taylor, Andrew J., Boatright, Robert G. 2005. “The Personal and the Political in Repeat Congressional Candidacies.” Political Research Quarterly 58 (4): 599–607. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Thomsen, Danielle M. 2018. “Gender Differences in Candidate Reemergence.” Boston. https://daniellethomsen.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/thomsen_apsa2018.pdf. Google Scholar | |
|
Vallejo, Agustin . 2019. “Nevertheless, She Persisted? Gender Differences in the Effect of Losing an Election on Political Ambition.” Paper presented at the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. Google Scholar | |
|
Wasserman, Melanie . 2018. Gender Differences in Politician Persistence. SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester: Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3370587. Google Scholar |
