The Interplay of Candidate Party and Gender in Evaluations of Political Candidates

ABSTRACT: In this article, we study the interaction between candidate gender and party on voter evaluations. Theories from psychology are the basis for our hypotheses about how candidate identities such as party and gender combine: Party might dominate certain evaluations, gender might dominate others, or gender and party might work in either an additive or interactive way to influence evaluations. Our evidence suggests that both party and gender separately influence candidate evaluations, even when accounting for the other. We discuss implications of these findings for the evaluation of female candidates.