Prominent Women in Political Office Boost Female Candidates down Ballot, New Research Finds

The presence of a prominent female officeholder has a positive effect on the number of women running for lower offices in her state, according to new research by University of Notre Dame political scientist Jeffrey J. Harden.

A state with a female governor or U.S. senator will see an increase in the proportion of women seeking state legislative office by about 2 to 3 percentage points, Harden and two co-authors wrote in an article published this month in the American Journal of Political Science.

For a typical election year, that amounts to about seven more female candidates in each state.

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March 22, 2018

Health and SocietyLaw and PoliticsApplied and Computational Mathematics and StatisticsCollege of Arts and LettersCollege of ScienceJeffrey HardenPolitical SciencePoliticsWomen