Women for Women?

In recent years, popular commentators have suggested that the Republican party could narrow the gender gap by nominating women candidates. This proposition assumes that (at least some) women voters’ partisan identification may be trumped by an affinity with their gender. I evaluate the claim that women voters are often induced to cross party lines on election day to support a woman candidate. Analyzing more than a decade of men’s and women’s voting behavior when male and female candidates face one another, I offer evidence that female candidates gain marginally greater support from their own gender. In a relationship not present with other male or female candidates, Democratic women candidates who face GOP men strongly benefit from Republican women voters’ crossover support.