That was a very interesting piece, professor. I didn't realize you'd already written a book on the 2016/2020 elections exploring these issues in more detail. I've ordered a copy.
I’m not sure we can jump to the conclusion that Harris lost due to sex or race when she captured close to 74 million votes. Was she a bad candidate? That’s still subjective. I do feel strongly that any candidate that runs on an Abortion and Democracy platform while most Americans suffer from high rent, high mortgages, high food prices, high automobile prices, and record high credit card debt set themselves up to lose. It also didn’t help that the majority of Americans witnessed the lack of leadership from Biden/Harris on the top of illegal immigration. The cries of help from Democratic mayors were heard loudly around the country. It highlighted the Biden/Harris administration poor leadership and recklessness on this topic.
I was ready to hate this article and am glad I read it. I think what you mean to say, from your argument, is that she didn’t lose JUST because or PRIMARILY because she was a woman. But where a plurality of factors can cause such tight results as the past three elections, I don’t think you can rule it out as one of many multiple potential “tipping points”.
I think as you note the data only supports global anti-incumbency as definitively a substantive factor, but given Dems’ outperforming other incumbents this year, Harris underperforming downballot Dems and the specific groups Trump gained with strongest (young men), some mix of misogynoir is likely in the mix behind it.
The problem with citing other women candidates is none are nationwide and most aren’t even statewide. If we took every state with at least a female senator or governor, we’d only total 263 electoral votes. And the two Black female Senators are in safe Blue states. So no, America has not shown it can elect a female President, especially not a Black one. We of course can’t do an A/B test to disprove this, but shift in polls from Biden to Harris that didn’t actually really bear out (when adjusted for MOE among states) aren’t data.
BUT - and again my only critique is the lack of that small “just/primarily” - I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion should resoundly NOT be “welp, guess a woman can’t win.”
It’s just an important lament that misogyny and misogynoir are still existent enough to have an impact.
It seems absurd to say that she might have lost because she was a woman, when she wouldn't have been the nominee if she hadn't been a woman. Her sex was actually helping her, just not enough to make up for her deficiencies as a candidate.
The basic mistake here was letting somebody get the nomination without having to demonstrate their political competence by actually winning primaries.
After endless takes my belief is that it was incumbents that are on the chopping block. Combine that with the impact of inflation and you have a miracle that Harris got as close as she did.
Also.. The biggest voting block was non voters. More people (90m) did not vote at all.
The Dems absolutely should not nominate a woman again for the foreseeable future. A GOP woman can win—I think Haley would have this time—but Dem candidates are already up against multiple factors against them (billionaires, hostile media, EC), and giving the GOP opportunities for sexist attacks is unwise in this environment IMHO. I’m dubious about any non-traditional candidate (LGBTQ, minority, etc) in the current context.
Why are you completely ignoring that VP Harris is a Black/Asian woman? You can’t pretend that she is a White woman, which your piece appears to do.
As a Black woman, I knew the second VP Harris was nominated, it was impossible for her to win. She would not, and did not, win the racist misogynistic designed electoral college, nor did she win the popular vote.
VP Harris lost because she is a Black Woman.
This country hates Black women, as can be evidenced by all of the innocent Black women shot and killed by police. Their only crime being a Black woman.
If you don’t want to look at Black women maternal death rates, or police shootings, or cancer outcomes, or covid19 outcomes, you can look at corporate America and USA politics. There has never been a Black woman governor. There is one Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. One. Same number as it was when Ursala Burns was the first Black Fenale CEO back in the 1980’s. We haven’t made any progress in 40 years.
VP Harris lost because she is a Black and Asian Woman. Not simply a “a woman”. White men, Asian men, Hispanic men, Muslim men, and White women will not vote for a Black or Asian Woman, and certainly not a “mixed” race woman. These groups don’t promote Black or Asian women in their organizations. Black women have been going to business schools for more than 50 years, yet our numbers at the top are stagnant. What explanation is there other than racism and misogyny?
VP Harris lost because this country was designed to keep rich white men in power, since the country’s founding on the genocide of the Native Americans and the kidnapping and enslavement of African people.
It is racist to remove VP Harris’s race from the discussion.
PS- sorry for the typos. I have sarscov2 brain damage- like millions of Americans.
Seth, well presented argument, but you did not mention that your candidate had even lower approval/likability numbers then your President. A result I believe is related to the fact that your candidate had the personality of finger nails across a chalk board. However in my humble opinion the most important fact to come out of this election is that the liberal elites are a living example of a fool and his money are soon parted, because they dumped $1Billion into a pit and just set it on fire. As well as even $1Billion dollars can not buy an election when you have a terrible candidate and a bunch of jar head Ivy League campaign professions trying to sell a flawed bag of goods…
Thought-provoking, SM, in a good way. I don't intend to cavil, but it might also be true that being a woman lost VPKH some quantity of votes she might have had if she'd been a man. In other words, her gender might have been a factor at the margin, among others (e.g., incumbency during a year when incumbent parties lost vote share in every developed country). I agree with your conclusion, though: declaring her gender decisive might deter parties from ever nominating women for President, and that's an undesirable outcome.
You guys spend a lot of time worrying about likability. But you do it on the margins. It’s pretty easy to vote for someone you don’t like, but it isn’t easy to vote for someone who doesn’t like you. Republicans clearly don’t spend this much time worrying “do voters *like* this candidate enough?” More reading of the room, less describing the people in it.
Harris being a woman, a black woman, a daughter of immigrants just gave a target for his lies. Fox News and the rest of the right’s Tom Tom drums repeated his insults aiming a young men reacting to Covid as well as moms whose kids had been home with s hoods closed during Covid. Democrats did not mention Covid, the deaths that were stopped, getting vaccines out , the anger of confinement, the possible over reaction but with a million deaths and now there was the future. Maybe democrats did not define their future enough but maybe gas and oil won the argument for the near future. We should campaign on world global climate news be added to local news so the average American can see the floods and winds worldwide. Too bad some rich group of Dems can’t buy CNN. And start our own Tom toms.
It's not that Harris was a woman. It's that Harris was a woman running against Trump. Many of Trump's voters are violently opposed to women having agency, especially when the woman in question would be able to make decisions that affect or "control" men. Future elections won't have Trump at the top of the ballot, and most likely even a Trump-like candidate could not duplicate Trump's ability to project the image of an alpha male who dominates everyone, especially women.
That was a very interesting piece, professor. I didn't realize you'd already written a book on the 2016/2020 elections exploring these issues in more detail. I've ordered a copy.
Thank you!
I’m not sure we can jump to the conclusion that Harris lost due to sex or race when she captured close to 74 million votes. Was she a bad candidate? That’s still subjective. I do feel strongly that any candidate that runs on an Abortion and Democracy platform while most Americans suffer from high rent, high mortgages, high food prices, high automobile prices, and record high credit card debt set themselves up to lose. It also didn’t help that the majority of Americans witnessed the lack of leadership from Biden/Harris on the top of illegal immigration. The cries of help from Democratic mayors were heard loudly around the country. It highlighted the Biden/Harris administration poor leadership and recklessness on this topic.
I was ready to hate this article and am glad I read it. I think what you mean to say, from your argument, is that she didn’t lose JUST because or PRIMARILY because she was a woman. But where a plurality of factors can cause such tight results as the past three elections, I don’t think you can rule it out as one of many multiple potential “tipping points”.
I think as you note the data only supports global anti-incumbency as definitively a substantive factor, but given Dems’ outperforming other incumbents this year, Harris underperforming downballot Dems and the specific groups Trump gained with strongest (young men), some mix of misogynoir is likely in the mix behind it.
The problem with citing other women candidates is none are nationwide and most aren’t even statewide. If we took every state with at least a female senator or governor, we’d only total 263 electoral votes. And the two Black female Senators are in safe Blue states. So no, America has not shown it can elect a female President, especially not a Black one. We of course can’t do an A/B test to disprove this, but shift in polls from Biden to Harris that didn’t actually really bear out (when adjusted for MOE among states) aren’t data.
BUT - and again my only critique is the lack of that small “just/primarily” - I wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion should resoundly NOT be “welp, guess a woman can’t win.”
It’s just an important lament that misogyny and misogynoir are still existent enough to have an impact.
It seems absurd to say that she might have lost because she was a woman, when she wouldn't have been the nominee if she hadn't been a woman. Her sex was actually helping her, just not enough to make up for her deficiencies as a candidate.
The basic mistake here was letting somebody get the nomination without having to demonstrate their political competence by actually winning primaries.
Good piece thanks.
After endless takes my belief is that it was incumbents that are on the chopping block. Combine that with the impact of inflation and you have a miracle that Harris got as close as she did.
Also.. The biggest voting block was non voters. More people (90m) did not vote at all.
The Dems absolutely should not nominate a woman again for the foreseeable future. A GOP woman can win—I think Haley would have this time—but Dem candidates are already up against multiple factors against them (billionaires, hostile media, EC), and giving the GOP opportunities for sexist attacks is unwise in this environment IMHO. I’m dubious about any non-traditional candidate (LGBTQ, minority, etc) in the current context.
Why are you completely ignoring that VP Harris is a Black/Asian woman? You can’t pretend that she is a White woman, which your piece appears to do.
As a Black woman, I knew the second VP Harris was nominated, it was impossible for her to win. She would not, and did not, win the racist misogynistic designed electoral college, nor did she win the popular vote.
VP Harris lost because she is a Black Woman.
This country hates Black women, as can be evidenced by all of the innocent Black women shot and killed by police. Their only crime being a Black woman.
If you don’t want to look at Black women maternal death rates, or police shootings, or cancer outcomes, or covid19 outcomes, you can look at corporate America and USA politics. There has never been a Black woman governor. There is one Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. One. Same number as it was when Ursala Burns was the first Black Fenale CEO back in the 1980’s. We haven’t made any progress in 40 years.
VP Harris lost because she is a Black and Asian Woman. Not simply a “a woman”. White men, Asian men, Hispanic men, Muslim men, and White women will not vote for a Black or Asian Woman, and certainly not a “mixed” race woman. These groups don’t promote Black or Asian women in their organizations. Black women have been going to business schools for more than 50 years, yet our numbers at the top are stagnant. What explanation is there other than racism and misogyny?
VP Harris lost because this country was designed to keep rich white men in power, since the country’s founding on the genocide of the Native Americans and the kidnapping and enslavement of African people.
It is racist to remove VP Harris’s race from the discussion.
PS- sorry for the typos. I have sarscov2 brain damage- like millions of Americans.
"This country hates Black women, as can be evidenced by all of the innocent Black women shot and killed by police."
By this same logic, this country would never vote for a Black man for president, except that it did, twice, by majority vote.
Seth, well presented argument, but you did not mention that your candidate had even lower approval/likability numbers then your President. A result I believe is related to the fact that your candidate had the personality of finger nails across a chalk board. However in my humble opinion the most important fact to come out of this election is that the liberal elites are a living example of a fool and his money are soon parted, because they dumped $1Billion into a pit and just set it on fire. As well as even $1Billion dollars can not buy an election when you have a terrible candidate and a bunch of jar head Ivy League campaign professions trying to sell a flawed bag of goods…
Best and Happy Thanksgiving
Thought-provoking, SM, in a good way. I don't intend to cavil, but it might also be true that being a woman lost VPKH some quantity of votes she might have had if she'd been a man. In other words, her gender might have been a factor at the margin, among others (e.g., incumbency during a year when incumbent parties lost vote share in every developed country). I agree with your conclusion, though: declaring her gender decisive might deter parties from ever nominating women for President, and that's an undesirable outcome.
You guys spend a lot of time worrying about likability. But you do it on the margins. It’s pretty easy to vote for someone you don’t like, but it isn’t easy to vote for someone who doesn’t like you. Republicans clearly don’t spend this much time worrying “do voters *like* this candidate enough?” More reading of the room, less describing the people in it.
Harris being a woman, a black woman, a daughter of immigrants just gave a target for his lies. Fox News and the rest of the right’s Tom Tom drums repeated his insults aiming a young men reacting to Covid as well as moms whose kids had been home with s hoods closed during Covid. Democrats did not mention Covid, the deaths that were stopped, getting vaccines out , the anger of confinement, the possible over reaction but with a million deaths and now there was the future. Maybe democrats did not define their future enough but maybe gas and oil won the argument for the near future. We should campaign on world global climate news be added to local news so the average American can see the floods and winds worldwide. Too bad some rich group of Dems can’t buy CNN. And start our own Tom toms.
It's not that Harris was a woman. It's that Harris was a woman running against Trump. Many of Trump's voters are violently opposed to women having agency, especially when the woman in question would be able to make decisions that affect or "control" men. Future elections won't have Trump at the top of the ballot, and most likely even a Trump-like candidate could not duplicate Trump's ability to project the image of an alpha male who dominates everyone, especially women.