Honors Theses

College

College of Arts and Sciences

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Political Science and Public Administration

Department

Department of Political Science and Public Administration

Major

Political Science, Psychology

Document Type

Honors Thesis

Abstract

The 2018 and 2020 elections saw large gains in women running for political office and winning. In general, there is an upward trend of more women being elected to political office, regardless of party. Yet, there still seem to be disparities between Democratic and Republican women. This raises an important question: Are women in the GOP disadvantaged when they run for office, and does this disadvantage come from Republican attitudes? More specifically, are there differences between Republican men and women in how they view female GOP candidates? I analyzed a unique survey of 500 registered Republicans before and after the 2018 election. Overall, attitudes are positive across the two election waves, but with interesting variation between men and women in acknowledging whether women face unique challenges when they run for office. The findings suggest that there is an obvious mismatch between what Republican voters express and what their voting behavior is, which may be due to the limited number of women running as Republicans, at least compared to Democrats.

Publication Date

4-1-2021

First Advisor

Merivaki, Thessalia

Second Advisor

Shrup, Brian

Third Advisor

Elder, Anastasia

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