A Penalty for Female Candidates?
Seth Masket crunches some numbers on female Senate and gubernatorial candidates and finds little evidence that female candidates do systematically better or worse than expected. (I noted his similar analysis of black candidates here.) Caveats abound, but this is an interesting starting point for more rigorous analysis.
Seth was also a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. His thoughts as a “participant observer” are here. His take-away from the last night:
Obama makes you feel like you’re part of a movement. I fully recognize that it’s not a movement — it’s a candidacy. But it’s a rare politician that can convey that feeling. Sometimes we support politicians for purely instrumental reasons — we want lower taxes or particular favors or policies from government and figure we can get it from a particular politician. Sometimes we support politicians simply because they suck somewhat less than the people they’re running against. But people actually enjoy the act of supporting Obama. You feel like you’re part of something important and historical. That is rare.
This, I think, encapsulates the experience of many Obama supporters.
Comments
John:
Kathryn Pearson and I have looked at the same thing for House elections and found that women do perform worse on election day, but only once you take into account that women tend to be better candidates than men—they run in more favorable districts, they tend to be more experienced, and they raise more money even after controlling for these first two advantages. In other words, women should win more often than men, but they don’t. Not sure if this finding is limited to House elections or if Seth would uncover a different result if he controlled for these sorts of candidate quality factors.
Posted by: Eric McGhee | September 3, 2008 12:42 PM
I think it is great that he was a delegate, but how reliable is participant observation data gathered by someone has ‘gone native’?
Posted by: Clifford G. | September 9, 2008 03:21 PM